At its 25th anniversary Leadership Awards Ceremony on Nov. 8, Share Our Strength presented its 2009 Leadership Awards to chefs, restaurants, restaurateurs, community volunteers and corporate executives who have made a significant impact on the fight to end childhood hunger in the United States.

Daniel Boulud and Zach Bell, Café Boulud, Palm Beach, Fla.: Share Our Strength's 2009 Community Leader – A Tasteful Pursuit Award
Boulud and Bell have been committed to Share Our Strength's A Tasteful Pursuit since the program began in 2005. They received the first Community Leader award for A Tasteful Pursuit because of their extraordinary fund-raising accomplishments and event production for the traveling dinner series. Each year, the two raise more funds by expanding the event's chef network and supporter base. Along with the rest of their team at The Dinex Group, they also actively support other Share Our Strength events in their area and across the country.

Billy Grant, Restaurant Bricco and Grants Restaurant and Bar, Hartford, Conn.: 2009 Share Our Strength Chef/Restaurateur of the Year Award
Grant helped revitalize Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation in Hartford by recruiting the area's top culinary talent, donating to the event's live auction (and receiving the highest bids in the room!), developing deep relationships with local affiliates of Taste of the Nation's national sponsors, and enrolling both of his restaurants in the Great American Dine Out and encouraging other restaurants to do the same.

(l to r) Jenny Dirksen, director, community investment, Union Square Hospitality Group; Billy Grant, chef-owner, Restaurant Bricco and Grants Restaurant and Bar, Hartford, Conn.; and Carrie Welch, vice president, public relations, Food Network

Mindy Segal, HotChocolate Restaurant and Dessert Bar, Chicago: 2009 Share Our Strength Chef/Restaurateur of the Year Award
New to Share Our Strength, this James Beard Award nominee went beyond expectations to rebuild Taste of the Nation in Chicago. She became the event's chairperson, led a 35-member committee and involved more than 800 people in the event. She leveraged her professional contacts to bring $25,000 of donated goods and services to the event, encouraged other major movers to get involved and served on the national Taste of the Nation Culinary Council, participating in other Taste of the Nation events across the country.

(l to r) Jenny Dirksen, director, community investment, Union Square Hospitality Group; Mindy Segal, HotChocolate, Chicago; and Carrie Welch, vice president, public relations, Food Network

Morris Salerno, president, Epicurean World Master Chefs Society, Highland Village, Texas: 2009 Share Our Strength's Operation Frontline Hall of Fame
Like all Operation Frontline Hall of Fame inductees, Salerno has been a volunteer chef-instructor for 15 or more Operation Frontline courses. Unlike many of them, he has operated three fine-dining restaurants and is still running two of them, Salerno's Restaurant in Flower Mound, and The Grotto in Highland Village. He has also been a competing chef for the Epicurean World Master Chefs Society of America since 1992 and is now that organization's president. Salerno has been teaching Operation Frontline courses at the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas for the past ten years.

Jean Bowen, Owner, Cuisine by Jean, Boulder, Colo.: 2009 Share Our Strength's Operation Frontline Hall of Fame
Operation Frontline teaches families--adults, teens and kids--how to make healthy, tasty meals on limited budgets. Bowen's personal chef business prepared her well for the courses she teaches with Share Our Strength's Operation Frontline-Colorado in Denver. Her business specializes in meals for those with medical needs, especially Type II Diabetes, something many Operation Frontline students must consider in addition to making healthy meals on very limited budgets.

(l to r) Operation Frontline Hall of Fame winners: Jean Bowen, owner, Cuisine by Jean, Boulder, Colo.; Eva Forson, chef-instructor, the Institute of Culinary Education and the culinary arts division of The New School, New York City, and owner, African Palava; Marilyn Matusch, retired educator, Portland, Ore.; Morris Salerno, chef-owner, Salerno's Restaurant, Flower Mound, and The Grotto, Highland Village, Texas; Kori Reed, ConAgra Foods Foundation, the national sponsor of Share Our Strength's Operation Frontline

For more information about Share Our Strength, its work to end childhood hunger by 2015 or any of its programs, visit www.strength.org.