Julie Eliathamby, Founder of Peoria Grown

In this episode,Mark and Sam talk to Julie Eliathamby about food deserts and how adaptive strategies and partnerships can work to over come the nutritional challenges of these deserts.   Julie Eliathamby, a Chinese Indian from Malaysia, moved to the United States in 2005 and has lived in Peoria for the past 15 years. She is a multilingual, cross- cultural professional with over 25 years ofexperience in operations, customer service and sales.  Julie’s primary focus is building client-centric teams and creating efficiency in processes. She loves an  entrepreneurial challenge and has been active in consulting locally, as well as running her own import-retail and construction and interior design companies in the US and Asia. Julie oversees operations for the investment division at Better Banks. She is married to Jim, a native Peorian, who works at Bradley University. They have one son at Peoria Notre Dame and another at Bradley.For the past ten years, Julie has been very involved in community initiatives. She founded the Tireless Recycling Project in 2015 to address illegal tire dumping in Peoria, running the program for 2 ½ years. In 2018, she participated in Senator Chuck Weaver’s Leadership Program and founded the nonprofit Peoria Grown to address food insecurity by creating access and wellness programs.