Our Next Speaker

Melissa V. Christian

Melissa V. Christian was born and raised here in Richmond, VA. She graduated from Douglas Freeman High school and attended Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C. After college, Melissa went into the food service industry where she did everything from waitressing, to bartending, to cooking/chef, to bar and restaurant manager, to assistant country club manager, to owning and operating her own catering firm.  

She left the food service industry for better working hours and to become a full time mother of three great children. She is now expecting her first grandchild, a boy, on March 12.  She is a Paul Harris Fellow, as are all her children, given by Mark through the Rotary Club of Richmond. 

Her love of the culinary arts led her to one of her major hobbies that she will describe to the Club.  Melissa has been keeping bees for over ten years. You will often find her on her family farm in Gloucester, VA., at the side of the fruit orchard tending her several hives to harvest the sweet reward of her endeavors, the honey.  She has harvested and given as gifts countless gallons of raw honey over the years. This is how Melissa has earned one of her family nicknames of the “Queen Bee.”