Celeste Ceres

Background

About Celeste Ceres

Celeste is a community advocate and multimedia artist committed to health equity, Black food sovereignty and social entrepreneurship. Harnessing cooking as a tool for healing and connection, Celeste has worked towards putting cultural food education on the agenda for equity-deserving students through her charity, Sacraspice, which hosts multicultural and intergenerational cooking workshops for youth. Taking the stage at WE Day 2017 in front of nearly youth, Celeste shared her story of culinary arts as a means of healing and creativity, speaking alongside change-makers like Prince Harry, Kelly Clarkson, and Andre De Grasse. Celeste has fostered experiential learning opportunities for youth in urban agriculture at TMU Urban Farm, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for conservation agriculture and development initiatives throughout Africa and Asia at Tearfund Canada, and worked with government, academic, and community stakeholders to address food insecurity amongst Black Canadians at Black Food Sovereignty Toronto. She's coordinated the amassing of critical community input to inform the decision-making of municipal interdivisional tables in the City’s $5 million budget for the Black Food Sovereignty Plan. Her work has helped spur historic change, such as the proclamation of the International Day for People of African Descent by City Hall in 2022, in alignment with the United Nations’ International Decade for People of African Descent. As a self-taught writer, videographer, and photographer, Celeste is ultimately a storyteller at heart, with her bylines featured in publications like ByBlacks, SHIFTER Magazine, MANIFESTO, and EARMILK. Passionate about shining a light on Black narratives, Celeste is a member of the Canadian Association of Black Journalists and has spearheaded projects like SHIFTER Magazine’s 2022 Outstanding Black Men in Canada list. In the entertainment scene, Celeste’s lens has captured a diverse range of figures––from rappers Common and Drake to President Barack Obama. She's interviewed artists like Trevor Jackson, Ama Lou, and the multi-talented nephew of Michael Jackson: Jaafar Jackson. She's also led creative music marketing campaigns for artists like Arab-American pop singer ABIR, Ottawa community leader and rapper City Fidelia, and Toronto R&B and Soul duo TR.PP. Celeste continues her love for storytelling from an equity-based lens as the Community Partnerships & Engagement Communications Officer at the University of Toronto Portfolio: Charity: