Gwyn's Story
Gwyn Whitaker is the CEO of GreenFare Health and Wellness, Inc. and the Greenfare Health and Wellness 501 (c)(3) nonprofit.
“There is no money in health.” I heard this first in the early nineties during the ‘War on Cancer’ during the implementation of a $32 million supercomputer at the National Cancer Institute. Since this time, the needle on cancer mortality has barely moved with hundreds of billions spent on research and treatments that may shrink tumors but not extend life. After years of watching all types of chronic disease reverse through the GreenFare Organic Café 21 Day Kickstart program, I became convinced that education is key. Doctors have not been taught about health and wellness, rather diagnosing symptoms and prescribing never ending medications as influenced by the pharmaceutical industry who is embedded in the government research and university arenas.
While this is changing with programs that the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine offer to shift the thinking into healing rather than treating, I decided that a non-profit, GreenFare Health and Wellness, could move the needle in the influential DC area and so the entity was formed in 2019 and established as an IRS 501(c)(3) in February 2020. We received our first significant grant of $25k in March and hosted a twenty-five person program with African Americans including food and classes that showed that type 2 diabetes is a reversible disease, despite mainstream belief that this is not possible.
This is just one chronic disease (that we have documented on our YouTube channel https://youtu.be/5cJjw8pbtCI?si=vfnZeAFGAgLZrPst ) that can be easily reversed with education and meals. Others shown in firsthand testimonials include avoidance of gall bladder surgery, reversal of gluten intolerance, rheumatoid arthritis, kidney disease, congestive heart disease, and major weight loss.
GreenFare Health and Wellness started and ran the very successful, well attended event, the Fairfax Veg Fest, for 5 years with leading doctors like T Colin Campbell, Neal Barnard MD, Baxter Montgomery MD, and Kim Williams MD, providing the connection between food choices and disease, as well as the case for the environment and compassion for animals being impacted as well. We have coordinated efforts with the Defense Health Agency medical doctors and provided education to AARP with goals of lasting changes in these organizations. I have done hundreds of talks on podcasts, companies, churches, schools, retirement homes, and kickstart classes in the past ten years to inspire change in our lifestyles with a message of hope and empowerment that our genes are not our destiny.
I am deeply grateful to our followers and contributors who help this local mission to make change and I look forward to a future where health is the norm, the climate has cooled to a level where it is not news, and animals of other species are recognized as our friends and not our food. As Charles Fillmore said, “We need never look for universal peace on this earth until men stop killing animals for food.” I am hopeful that this will be in our lifetime and encourage people to visit GreenFare to help us make this happen sooner.