While pursuing a bachelor’s degree in policy studies at the Maxwell School, Derek Wallace and a classmate launched a community outreach program that supported Syracuse children in academics and athletics.

Called Shooting for A’s, the program strived to connect the University to the community by providing K-12 students an opportunity to bolster their academic performance and play basketball with their favorite players. A first-year student at the time, Wallace saw how young kids in the community looked up to Syracuse athletes and decided to use that admiration to encourage learning.

“I became most passionate about this calling to want to build things, identify problems and figure out ways that we could build structures to eliminate them,” says Wallace. As an undergraduate, he also began a youth financial literacy program called Balancing the Books that continues today as a collaboration among the Syracuse City School District, the Whitman School, and the University’s Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public and Community Service.

From a young age, Wallace knew he wanted to make a career of helping others, but it was the experiences he had while studying at Maxwell, combined with the classroom instruction and mentorship from faculty like policy studies program founder Bill Coplin, that provided a foundation for his entrepreneurial endeavors.

Today, Wallace ’00 B.A. (PSt) is the CEO of Golden Fork Media and a co-founder of Kalamata’s Kitchen, an educational multimedia company that seeks to help kids expand their palates while encouraging empathy and understanding. The brand is centered around its fictional namesake who imagines traveling the world, exploring cuisine and culture, including in a kitchen in Venezuela, an orchard in Maine and a garden in France, to name a few.

The idea came to Wallace one evening in 2017 while he was watching an episode of the Netflix show Chef’s Table. As the episode unfolded, he was struck by how he was impacted exploring the world through food. He thought about his son, Henry, who was 2 at the time.

“If he could realize by the time he was 4 what took me until I was 24 years old to realize, he would grow up to be a more empathetic person,” says Wallace, adding that he wondered, “How could I get him to care as much as I did?”

Wallace decided to create a character that Henry and other children could learn from. He registered a web domain for Kalamata’s Kitchen and enlisted the help of his good friend Sarah Thomas, a sommelier at the prestigious Le Bernardin.

“I essentially got a call from one of my best friends offering me my dream job that I didn’t even know existed,” recalls Thomas. “So, of course I jumped at the opportunity.” In fact, Thomas’ diverse background as the child of Indian immigrants and a graduate of Cambridge University in English renaissance literature served as the inspiration for Kalamata’s character.

In 2018, the duo self-published their first book about Kalamata’s adventures. Kalamata’s Kitchen introduces Kalamata and her best friend, a stuffed alligator named Al Dente. The colorful story follows their adventure as Kalamata overcomes her first day of school jitters by reminiscing about a family trip to India. Two more self-published books followed.

In 2021, Wallace and Thomas released the first of their two books with Penguin Random House. They have also launched Taste Bud Travel Guide, an online guide to kid-friendly restaurants around the country.

Wallace says his journey was shaped by his time at Maxwell. The policy studies program fit well with his aspirations for social entrepreneurship, as Coplin cultivated the program with the mantra “do good” and promoted community service.

“Derek was very active as a volunteer, implementing his program against all odds,” says Coplin, adding that he is “full of energy and never takes no for an answer.”

The policy studies program encourages students to take initiative and collaborate on projects with real clients, real-world issues and practical challenges. Wallace describes it as “completely energizing,” noting that it gave him a professional edge after college.

Wallace visits Syracuse University often. In 2021, he was a judge for the Hult Prize Foundation competition, hosted by the Syracuse University Blackstone LaunchPad, where competing students presented solutions and presentations to address issues in the food industry.

He has also maintained a connection with athletics, recently launching the first All-Star Family Food Fest. Athletes selected dishes for kids to sample at the women’s basketball team’s last home game in March.

For Wallace, it felt like coming full circle. “There is so much about it that reminds me of our experience launching Shooting for A’s when I was a student on campus,” he says. “The [All-Star Family Food Fest] makes me realize that Syracuse University is always going to support ideas that have this kind of positive impact.”

By Mikayla Melo