The Nashville Food Project Care Package for Uncertain Times (Part 1)

We collected our inspirations, recommendations, motivations—all salve for the loneliness and fears this virus and social distancing can produce. These recommendations aren’t necessarily heavy or directly related to the pandemic or our work. Rather it's a collection intended to nourish and accompany our community as we all stay home together.

When the Helpers Need our Help

Our restaurant friends have shown up for us in extraordinary ways over the years with their skilled hands, big hearts, expert knowledge, creativity and efficient work. They’ve taught us through action about service and heaped generosity upon us helping raise thousands to fund our twin goals of cultivating community and alleviating hunger in our beloved city Nashville. They’ve had our backs—and thus, the backs of so many across this city. They’ve shown us all hospitality and provided space for building community at their welcome tables. And now our restaurant friends need us.

Sharing Hope

The blows our Middle Tennessee neighbors have endured since the beginning of March have been enormous. Our local community is entering into this pandemic already tired, afraid, economically strapped, and needing each other’s physical presence more than ever. The calls for social distancing are in direct conflict with our mission “to bring people together,” but our staff are soldiering on to nourish our community in these changing times with our actions, inaction, love, and prayers.

COVID-19 Response

COVID-19 Response

What a whirlwind, and what a hard couple of weeks for our community. After coming together as a city to respond to the devastation left by the tornadoes only ten days ago, we are now grappling with what it looks like to support one another when we are advised to no longer physically gather together. The warning is in direct conflict with our mission “to bring people together,” but in a time of so much unknown, we are taking both the needs of our community and the health and safety of our staff and program participants very seriously.

Starting a Community Garden

Over the years, we’ve witnessed the benefits of community gardens firsthand. Participants tell us they experience improved physical and mental health as well as a stronger sense of belonging.

But in addition to participants in our own programs, we also hear from folks who want to start community gardens of their own. If you’re interested in assembling a group and inspiring change, as we are, then here are a few good places to start:

"Dirty Pages" Community Potluck

“I tell my daughters that when I go, they’ll know the good recipes by the dirty pages.” —Kim McKinney

That’s the quote that launched Dirty Pages, a recipe storytelling project celebrating our most well-loved recipes with their splatters and stains. We know they make good dishes, because they’ve been handed down to family and friends. But they also act as maps -- their scribbles in the margins helping connect us and tell our stories.

Food as a Lens

On a recent Thursday, more than 45 people filed into The Nashville Food Project’s community dining room, shaking umbrellas and shedding coats to join us for a hot cup of scratch-made sweet potato chili, a panel, and community conversation on the complexities of food injustice and how hunger intersects with other systemic inequities.

A Food Waste Challenge Friendsgiving

For November’s Simmer series dinner, the fabulous Chef Maneet Chauhan had the idea to host a Friendsgiving in our Community Dining Room. But rather than bring in the typical Thanksgiving turkey and sides, she wanted to see what she could whip up with just the ingredients we had on hand in our kitchen — a special Food Waste Challenge Friendsgiving to celebrate abundance.