Meet our founder:

Laurel Morris is a current high school student from Arizona. Laurel founded the Healing Table Project in August of 2025, the summer after her Freshman year.

In 2022, Laurel’s dad was diagnosed with Stage 3 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Thankfully, he is in remission now, but at the time he was enduring monthly rounds of chemotherapy.

Since his diagnosis came just after the COVID-19 pandemic, and his cancer treatment caused him to become immunocompromised, Laurel and her family were stuck quarantined at home longer than most people, with very limited social interaction. She struggled greatly seeing her dad experience the grueling side effects of his cancer treatment.

Looking for a hobby to distract from her situation at home, Laurel discovered cooking and baking. She and her elementary school friends began having FaceTime calls every weekend to cook and bake different recipes, which gave her a great sense of distraction from her dad’s condition.

This experience inspired Laurel to start The Healing Table Project. In starting this organization, Laurel hopes to spread the same feelings of distraction and joy to kids enduring various forms of difficult circumstances through cooking and baking. Through the same ways that helped her get through one of the toughest times in her life, she ultimately hopes to make a tougher chapter of kids’ lives a little bit brighter.