Brady Farmer started his nonprofit in 2011 because he wanted to help kids and families in need, to give them the kind of help he had desperately needed when he was a child, but didn’t get.
He started organizing events and went to culinary school in Seattle while also working with autistic children and those with physical disabilities.
“This is where my ion for helping others truly developed. Coming from a poor, sick childhood, I understood firsthand what hunger and need were like,” he says. “I wasn’t starving or homeless, but I saw and felt what hopelessness and being unwanted felt like. I had two families with money, but my mother kept me from both sides. In turn, I saw what needing something and not being able to get it also felt like. Even though it was right there, my mother did not give that to me.”
Years later, he started MC Farmer Inc. (which does business as the Devoted to Youth Foundation), a nonprofit focused on helping underprivileged youth and families. With his wife, Mariana, they also operate the Point Loma Farmers’ Market on Sundays, run a nonprofit catering company, and organize events and festivals, including their Summer Culture Fest on July 6 at Waterfront Park and their Brazilian Day Festival on Sept. 7 at Seaport Village.
Farmer, 43, is president of the nonprofit and spent more than 14 years as a personal chef for a long list of famous clientele. He and his wife live in Poway with their children. He took some time to talk about their desire to help others and how his own childhood has influenced his work today.
Q: You mentioned that you were very sick when you were young and that you were a child in need. Are you comfortable sharing what your circumstances were like when you were a kid?
A: I’ve died twice in my life. Once when I was born and once when I was 8 months old when I bit an electrical outlet and burned the left side of my mouth off. I was born with asthma and various ear, nose, and throat problems. I was sick with everything one can think of. I was allergic to almost everything, and I was also addicted to pain killers and other medications as that was my mom’s answer for every ailment or problem. At 12 years old, I received a life-changing operation taking out half of my sinuses, which helped me immensely. The difference was night and day. At that point, I was able to have a life, but then I had to start working at 12 years old to help my mom.
I have a huge soft spot in my heart for sick kids. It kills me to see all the problems in this world that we, as parents, are helping our kids continue to have through horrible food, candy, drinks, etc. My biggest goal in life is to help feed people and help people thrive and learn to be more self-sufficient. I was lucky to get out of where I came from in Tacoma, Wash., surrounded by gangs and very bad stuff. I want to show the world and its youth that one can be surrounded by hell and make it out.
Q: Your organization’s website says that your primary goal is to help underprivileged youth and families in need. How does your organization define what this looks like?
A: Everyone’s experience is different. For instance, most people don’t understand that food insecurity even exists in the military. We want to help as many people as we can with what we have. Around the holidays we help families with meals for about 10 people, with leftovers. Our goal is to get a warehouse to build a catering kitchen and a food giveaway/pick-up location so we can do more to help.
What I love about Poway…
After living in L.A. for so long, I was always biased about San Diego; I had only been here with Mariana and I didn’t know what to expect. Now that I can call myself a San Diegan, I am so proud and in love with this city. I very much want to succeed here and make an even bigger mark than I did in Seattle and Los Angeles. San Diego is and always will be my home. I didn’t say that about anywhere else.
Q: Can you talk a bit about some of your programming, like food insecurity assistance and the educational bus?
A: We donate food regularly to local food banks, people in need, and help others find food. As we grow and do more, our charity will soon be able to fund our own programs and not rely on grants and donations as we will be able to do it ourselves and not by anyone else’s rules or regulations. We will be adding more festivals and more events to help us do all of this. As for the educational bus [their project to take decommissioned buses and turn them into mobile education vehicles with a range of activities for kids], we very much want to do this as it’s a ion project of ours which will soon come true.
Q: As someone who was in a similar situation as a child in need yourself, looking back, what would have been most helpful to you at that time? What do you wish you’d had— relationships, resources—that would have been most ive to you when you were in that situation?
A: To be honest, I wish I had a loving mother, a father, and access to my family. I wish my mom had the resources to help us and I didn’t have to work at such a young age and could’ve focused on sports, which I was very good at and could not do because of having to work to help pay bills. All in all, I wish I had a mother who cared about my health and wellbeing.
Q: How would you say your own lived experience has informed your approach to helping the kids and families you interact with through Devoted to Youth?
A: My experience without a father and basically no mother gave me all the tools to deal with stuff on my own. I’m not saying I did it the right way or the best way, but I did it because I had to, and I did it out of the sheer need to. If it wasn’t for me or my grandmother, I have no Idea how I would’ve done anything. I was forced to develop on my own at a young age, which led me to be way more self-sufficient and less in need of others. I learned how rewarding it was to be the provider.
Q: Can you share a story of an individual or family your organization has worked with?
A: We have helped many families along the way. I raised hundreds of thousand of dollars throughout the charity’s history and that went toward helping a lot of families and building events and things to help the charity survive and compete. Every year, we help families with food, clothing, and toys around the holidays. A couple of years ago, we raised over $60,000 to help families in Ukraine with food, clothing, and medical supplies for their families. Currently, we help a lot of families develop businesses, especially in the food industry, as that is where my expertise is.
Q: How did you get started as a personal chef?
A: I moved to California with the dream of being a big, famous event producer and actor, but life had other plans. I’m a self-taught chef with many years of cooking experience for my events and parties, but when I moved to Los Angeles in 2004, I met an old friend who said I needed to try out for domestic jobs in private homes. My first job was for the super producer, Joel Silver [known for the “Die Hard,” “Lethal Weapon,” and “Matrix” movie series, among many others]. From there, I ended up working for some of Hollywood’s biggest stars [including Christina Aguilera, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Simon Cowell, and Beyonce and Jay-Z, according to his client list]. I was self-taught until 2013, when I went to Le Cordon Bleu.
Q: What led you to starting and managing the Point Loma Farmers’ Market?
A: Mariana and I were figuring out what we wanted to do with our catering company and work in order to expand and grow. We were at the Poway Farmers’ Market and thought we should cook in farmers markets and how cool that would be. That dream ended when we thought, ‘Wait, why don’t we start our own farmers’ market and cook at our own market?’ That brought us to Point Loma High School and starting our first market.
Q: What has your work taught you about yourself?
A: The thing is, I have all the confidence in myself, just not in the world. I don’t trust people and I am very afraid of the world and its intentions. I am learning how tough I am, and how great I am, and how much I need to push and run forward faster and harder through every wall and everything in my way. One day, it will all happen.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: I guess it’s been two things: First, from my mom and others saying I would never be anything of value. The second thing was to focus on things that last, like food, children, and healthcare.
Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A: Most people are surprised that I have a nonprofit and that I fund it mostly with my wife and our work. And, the farmers’ market.
Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A: My idea of a good weekend is renting a boat and going to the bay with my family and enjoying everything together; eating and watching our kids have fun.
