Makeba 'Chef Keeba' Jones

Makeba Jones is building a career at the intersection of health, design, food, wellness, and community connection—bringing together more than 15 years of experience in administration, operations, hospitality, culinary arts, and holistic wellness.

In her role as Senior Administrative Professional at Georgia Tech’s SimTigrate Design Center in Atlanta, Makeba plays an integral role in supporting the people, projects, and operations behind the Center’s interdisciplinary work in evidence-based design, healthcare innovation, and human-centered environments. Through her administrative leadership, project coordination, organizational support, and commitment to operational excellence, she helps create the infrastructure that allows researchers, faculty, students, collaborators, and community partners to advance work focused on improving human health and well-being through design.

Her work at SimTigrate has further strengthened her interest in a question that has shaped much of her professional journey: How can the environments and experiences we create help people feel healthier, supported, connected, and seen?

That same question is at the heart of her work as Founder of Holistic Soul House. Originally growing from Culinary Therapy LLC, Holistic Soul House represents the evolution of Makeba’s vision for creating meaningful wellness experiences centered around food, conversation, culture, family, and belonging.

Drawing on her previous career as a Chef and Executive Chef in Atlanta, Chicago and Houston, along with her background in health, wellness, administration, and community engagement, Makeba along with business partner, Michele Padula of SBE Media, developed Culinary Therapy as a way to explore the powerful role that preparing and sharing meals together can play in bringing people together.

At the center of the experience is something beautifully familiar: the proven benefits of the family-style meal.

But the mission extends far beyond what is being served.

Through Culinary Therapy experiences, Holistic Soul House uses cooking, communal dining, guided conversation, nutrition education, and intentional connection to encourage families and individuals to reconnect, communicate, build healthier traditions, and create a stronger sense of belonging.

The next chapter of Holistic Soul House is focused on expanding Culinary Therapy into a broader Community Wellness Initiative rooted in the belief that Food Is Medicine—and connection is an essential part of wellness. Future programming is being developed across three interconnected experiences:

The Holistic Soul House Culinary Health Initiative will continue the traditional in-person family-style programming, bringing individuals, families, caregivers, couples, organizations, and communities around one table to prepare nutritious food, share meaningful conversations, and experience the social and emotional benefits of eating together.

The Holistic Soul House Mobile Wellness Unit is envisioned as a renovated RV that can take Culinary Therapy beyond traditional walls and directly into rural and underserved communities. The mobile unit will create intimate wellness experiences for individuals, single-parent households, couples, displaced individuals, caregivers, and families while helping reduce geographic and transportation barriers to community wellness resources.

Virtual Culinary Therapy Family-Style Dinners will create opportunities for connection regardless of distance—allowing displaced individuals to reconnect with family members, home-bound participants to share a meal with others, geographically separated families to gather around a virtual table, and organizations to participate in meaningful employee wellness and team-building experiences.

Together, these programs reflect Makeba’s vision of creating a wellness model that meets people where they are—whether that is around a community table, inside a rural community, in temporary housing, at home, in the workplace, or miles away from the people they love.

Makeba’s professional path has never followed only one lane—and she considers that one of its greatest strengths.

Her culinary background taught her that food can carry memory, culture, comfort, and identity.

Her experience in healthcare and wellness showed her the importance of prevention, education, and whole-person well-being.

Her administrative and operational career strengthened her ability to organize ideas, people, systems, projects, and partnerships.

And her work with Georgia Tech’s SimTigrate Design Center continues to expose her to the possibilities that emerge when research, healthcare, design, innovation, and human experience come together.

Makeba holds a Project Management Certificate from Emory University and professional certifications through the American Fitness Professionals Association (AFPA) in Holistic Nutrition and Holistic Wellness Coaching. Her educational journey has also included studies at Le Cordon Bleu, Houston Community College, Gateway Technical College, and the Illinois School of Health Careers—reflecting a lifelong commitment to learning across culinary arts, healthcare, wellness, leadership, and community development.

Her commitment to wellness extends beyond her professional work.

Makeba has supported causes and initiatives centered on suicide prevention, social empowerment, health awareness, mentorship, and community engagement. Her involvement with organizations and community networks including CABA Chicago, HLR, and SBE Media reflects her belief that meaningful change happens when people use their experiences, talents, relationships, and voices in service of something larger than themselves.

Today, Makeba is intentionally bringing the pieces of her journey together.

At SimTigrate, she continues supporting work that explores how thoughtfully designed environments and systems can influence health and human experience.

Through Holistic Soul House, she is working to transform Culinary Therapy into an accessible community wellness platform capable of reaching families and individuals through in-person, mobile, and virtual experiences.

And through future partnerships with healthcare organizations, rural communities, behavioral wellness providers, community organizations, corporations, universities, foundations, and public agencies, she hopes to demonstrate that improving community health does not always begin in a clinical setting.

Sometimes it begins with a cutting board.

Sometimes it begins with a conversation.

Sometimes it begins when someone realizes they no longer have to eat alone.

And sometimes healing begins when people simply have the opportunity to sit down together at the table.

Makeba credits her family, friends, mentors, colleagues, and community for helping shape the woman and leader she continues to become.

Her message to young women is simple:

You do not have to choose only one part of who you are in order to become successful.

Your experiences are not random chapters. The jobs that taught you discipline, the dreams that changed direction, the setbacks that forced you to grow, the gifts that never quite fit into a traditional title, and even the seasons when you had to begin again can all become part of your purpose.

Learn everything you can. Keep evolving. Build relationships. Ask questions. Walk into rooms that challenge you. Create the opportunities you wish existed. And never underestimate the value of bringing every part of yourself to the table.

Because sometimes the very experiences that seem disconnected are preparing you to build something that could only come from you.

For Makeba Jones, that work is just getting started.

"Lead with purpose. Pursue work that creates positive change, uplifts others, and leaves a lasting impact on your community. When passion and service come together, extraordinary things happen."