Toni Oplt is a program coordinator for Brighter Bites in Houston. Up until recently, she was the Volunteer Services Recruitment Supervisor at the Houston Food Bank. In this role, Toni recognized the potential for expanding the support of volunteers through innovative engagement such as goal setting and competitions between groups, generating successful volunteering and fundraising campaigns for the food bank. It was at the food bank where Toni learned about Brighter Bites and seized the opportunity to work as a Program Coordinator so she could be involved more directly with the Houston community by working in the schools and camps where Brighter Bites is active.

Before joining the food bank, Toni worked in research, first in laboratories where she specialized in quality assurance, and, more recently, in medical research with the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolism in the Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine where she studied a protein believed to cause metabolic abnormalities in HIV patients. While Toni was doing this work, she started supporting the Houston Food Bank as a committed volunteer where her passion for the mission quickly led to her last position with the organization. Toni is a native Texan and has lived in Houston for almost 20 years. She and her husband love to travel and spend time in the great outdoors.