Returning Home: Why Food, Story, and Community Matter More Than Ever

Tambra Raye Stevenson Keynotes UT Southwestern Symposium During National Nutrition Month

Every journey has a circle.

This March, during National Nutrition Month, WANDA founder Tambra Raye Stevenson returns to the Lone Star state, not simply as a keynote speaker, but as a daughter of the Dallas that helped shape her earliest understanding of food, culture, and community.

On March 5, 2026, Tambra will deliver the keynote address at the 3rd Annual Community Engagement Symposium at UT Southwestern Medical Center, held at Pegasus Park in Dallas.

Her talk, “From Cowboy Culture to Community as Medicine: How Our Food, Stories, and Choices Shape Our Health,” will explore how food traditions, storytelling, and partnerships can transform the way communities approach health.

For Tambra, this moment is personal.

Before becoming a national voice on Food as Medicine, before founding WANDA: Women Advancing Nutrition, Dietetics & Agriculture, and before speaking at conferences across the United States and internationally, she was a child walking the halls of Maple Lawn Elementary School in Dallas.

It was there, like in many homes across Texas and Oklahoma, that she first witnessed how food connects generations. Meals were never just meals. They were lessons. Lessons about care. Lessons about culture. Lessons about how communities nourish one another. Those early experiences planted the seeds for a career dedicated to exploring how food systems, health, and storytelling intersect.

Today, through WANDA, Tambra leads initiatives that elevate culturally meaningful foods, empower women leaders in agriculture and nutrition, and advocate for policies that recognize food as a powerful tool for preventing chronic disease.

Her keynote will highlight a central truth that often gets lost in public health conversations: health behaviors are shaped not only by science, but by culture, identity, and belonging.

The theme of this year’s symposium, “Power in Partnership,” reflects the growing understanding that lasting health solutions require collaboration between researchers, health systems, and communities themselves.

According to Dr. Heather Kitzman, Director of the Office of Community Health & Research Engagement at UT Southwestern:

For Tambra, returning to Dallas during National Nutrition Month carries deeper meaning.

It is a reminder that the roots of healthier communities are often planted in the everyday places where people gather: schools, kitchens, churches, and neighborhood tables.

And it is also a call to action.

As rates of diet-related chronic disease continue to rise across the United States, WANDA’s work emphasizes that solutions must extend beyond clinical care to include the stories, traditions, and wisdom that communities already hold.

“Food is not just fuel,” Tambra often says.“It is memory, culture, and medicine.”

When communities reclaim their food stories and reconnect with their agricultural and cultural roots, they unlock new possibilities for health, resilience, and belonging.

During National Nutrition Month, WANDA celebrates the people and partnerships that make this work possible from farmers and nutrition professionals to educators, mothers, and community advocates.

Because the future of health will not be built by institutions alone. It will be built by communities. And sometimes, the most powerful journeys forward begin by returning home.

Event Details

3rd Annual Community Engagement Symposium

UT Southwestern Medical Center

March 5, 2026 | 8:30 AM – 5:00 PMPegasus Park | Dallas, Texas

Keynote Speaker: Tambra Raye Stevenson

Founder & CEO, WANDA: Women Advancing Nutrition, Dietetics & Agriculture