"A good vision calls people to act on the courage of their own convictions evoked by the invitation to be part of something bigger than themselves."  Vincent Amanor-Boadu, PhD Dept. of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University

About Us, the founding partners:

Anita Allison:   Born ~ Anita Yen-Ni Hom,  in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  

I have lived in nineteen different homes since leaving the one I grew up in, and have lived on three different continents and two different coastlines (east & west.)   In other words, I am good at adapting!

I am a mom.

I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Textile Design from the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science (now, Philadelphia University.)

Upon graduating, I was blessed with a very fortunate opportunity in the form of a career in Banking at Fidelity Bank in Philadelphia ~ now a diluted part of Well's Fargo...and boy did we have fun!  I learned a lot too, which proved to be a great bonus!

This led to another unexpected job opportunity, this time in the City of London, England just before I turned twenty-five. I loved life in London. So I essentially stayed until I moved to Dubai, seven years later.  (There was a two year period during this time that represented my first steep, uphill climb towards my first big audacious goal...this making of a dream-come-true, would later be the foundation for which I started my next climb with creating and launching green2go.)

My international banking career exposed me to the world of international trade finance and financial institutions where I travelled mainly between NY, London, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

Just before I moved to Dubai, I married Bobby Allison in America in Cape May, N.J.  We had ALOT of fun with ALOT of people...it turned out to be the wedding party that lasted three months!  Both my kids were born in the United Arab Emirates...by the Persian Gulf. I lived there for eight years.

I worked for a French Bank in London and Dubai ~ Banque Paribas, at the time, now part of what was BNP.  Another incredible experience to say the least.

Now I am in southern California, which is really very nice indeed. I have lived here, in nearly perfect weather, since early October 2001.

Since coming back to America, feeling still en route, I have been a Realtor in Orange County and an active volunteer at our wonderful elementary school. Just before we left Dubai I started a project I first realized when I was about fourteen...I began working on writing a book.  I self-published here in Cali through iUniverse, under the title: riding the wave inside out.  It could have been edited for many more months to any number of years...I just wanted to wrap it up and move on, which I have!

I have been working on green2go since Thanksgiving of 2007, when our story begins.

The following year our home burned down to the ground in a wild fire in mid-November 2008, along with over a hundred other homes. The fire and the rebuilding have been quite an amazing experience.  Our new home was built as green as possible by a group of angels.  Rebuilding took almost exactly two years...three more places I have called home...This is it, another beginning!

Joulia Kallah:   I am a Greek woman born in Peru, where I lived until I was two years-old, when my parents packed us along with their other prized possessions and shipped us to Ecuador.  We lived there until I was four, and then my mother took my two sisters and I back to her homeland, Greece.  The journey didn’t quite end there, but in Southern California where we landed when I was eight and where I have lived ever since.       

Today I am the mother of two wonderful girls (Alexia and Sophia)... and I am married to a wonderful man (Tony Kallah) who started his life in Lebanon and ended up in Southern California as well. Hence, I am a  true  Californian ~ a citizen of the world!

I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Graphic design from California State University of Long Beach. 

I believe that life prepares you for dreams that sometimes you are not aware of.  My career started as a bookkeeper for an R&D kitchen, where I ended up assisting in food recipe development. 

I then fell back into my intended profession and worked for a design firm in Newport Beach, California for ten years.  There I designed commercial menus for major upscale hotels in Southern California, working closely with their executive chefs. 

When I became a mother, looking for flexibility led me to start work as a Real Estate agent.            

Today my dreams have expanded and thanks to green2go I am also committed to community and school gardens through give2grow (my new baby).  It is my hope that children discover the value of fresh produce and the power of growing them themselves. 

I grew up with a mother and a grandmother who cooked not only to feed us, but to show us love and the wonders of food.  It is to them that I owe my love for food.  Thanks to my mother’s amazing dishes and her lessons with a ladle, I feel the need to instill the same love of good food in my children.            

Through this life's journey I have had the constant love and support of my best friend Mache.  We have sailed through life hand-in-hand.  We have donned aprons and cooked together for many years.  We have always shared dreams and sorrows.  And for this I thank her also.

 Melissa Terwiske:  Our third partner and longtime superwoman, Melissa, is currently juggling a serious load of commitments besides green2go, including a few major consulting obligations, a family of six kids, eight grandkids, a non-stop travel schedule and the like! I (Anita) have therefore offered to add a little background information for any interested parties, until things calm down a bit and she can focus on this little spot.

Melissa grew up here on the west coast of the States, went to business school in Arizona and California, and then spent the next part of her life immersed in the fast growing, southern California restaurant industry. She helped grow a successful chain of family restaurants known as Claim Jumper, from only three locations to nearly forty.  

The finance side of business has been her forte for over 25 years.  The major projects and achievements she has managed, bring green2go a wealth of industry experience.  She is truly one of those super women who is always on the fly but never misses a beat! She has been our credibility as we forged ahead working to launch a start-up restaurant concept during the longest and deepest recession in America.