staff
Michele Kresge
Director of Donor Relations
Michele began her career in food service at the age of 18 and worked in various corporate restaurants. Eventually, she ended up at Chili’s in Athens, Georgia. While living there and working full-time to pay her way through school, she developed a deep passion for the people she met and worked with not only at Chili’s but all throughout the town where food service workers were everywhere and were essential to a thriving community. Her friends and co-workers became family and she eventually married Todd Kresge, the bartender of the Athens Chili’s — she was the lounge server and it was love at the first margarita! The time she spent immersed in the culture of Athens — not just football and college — but the arts, the food, the music, and sometimes the mayhem, shaped her life to have a passionate love for all those working in the service industry.
After graduation from the Univerity of Georgia in 2004, Michele and Todd moved to Atlanta and both got jobs in restaurants as they navigated their new city. Michele eventually began a career in the world of non-profits; her first job outside of food service was at Fernbank Museum. In 2008, Todd — now her husband — decided it was time to go back to school, so left his job as a restaurant General Manager to be a server at Muss and Turner’s while earning his degree.
During Todd’s time at M&T’s, he and Michele both developed an even deeper appreciation for restaurant culture that continues today. They had a front-row seat to Ryan Hidinger’s inspiring journey that led to Giving Kitchen’s foundation, along with the great work of Todd Mussman, Ryan Turner, and, later, Chris Hall. Witnessing the inception of Giving Kitchen has been a source of inspiration for Michele for many years.
Michele eventually joined the team of a national non-profit, The Trust for Public Land. It was there that she was able to truly intertwine her personal and professional life by supporting another one of her passions: parks and green space.
In 2022, she was called to Giving Kitchen and she knew in her heart that it was time to come full circle and give her time and talents back to the food service industry — the industry and culture that shaped both her and her husband’s lives.
Michele and Todd now live in Grant Park in Atlanta where they raise their son and two daughters. You can find them doing all things Atlanta, from parks, to museums, to food, to music, to good friends, to cheap beer, and late nights on the porch.