Earlier this year, volunteer Jenn Crimm wrote, photographed, edited, and designed her own cookbook — a labor of love that aimed to preserve the meals that got her through a tough season. Food has always been central to Jenn’s life, from growing up in a close-knit Italian family to forging friendships around the table in Nashville. Her grandmother's cheesecake, a cherished but undocumented recipe, inspired her to create a cookbook to ensure her own recipes could be passed on to her loved ones.

There’s something to be said for things that grow steadily over time — like a well-tended garden. And just like the garden requires patience, care, and dedication to show up again and again, so do partnerships that create lasting change. For the last three years, Love, Tito’s, the philanthropic heart of Tito’s Handmade Vodka, has supported The Nashville Food Project as part of their Block to Block program. 

In the midst of our annual Volunteer Celebration Lunch, an event to show gratitude to all of the many hands and hearts that help sustain our collective work toward community food security, Maggie Atchley reflects on her first couple of months working as the Volunteer Engagement Manager for The Nashville Food Project.

It’s National Volunteer Appreciation Week, and we’re celebrating the incredible folks who show up daily to chop veggies, shovel compost, mix dressings, and even sharpen knives! These simple, sometimes un-glamorous tasks are the backbone of the Food Project — but the community members that lend their hands to this work each day are the heart.

Amy and Denise met each other when they were dropping their kids off to kindergarten at a local Nashville elementary school. They clicked, and for the past 20 years have been pretty much inseparable friends. They go on family vacations together, do lunch together, and volunteer at St. Luke’s Kitchen as a Cook Team. 

Mary Susan is one of those people that light up a room as soon as they step in. With an incredibly witty and fun sense of humor, storytelling that you could listen to for hours, and a laugh that feels like a warm hug, Mary Susan is an integral part of our community.   

As soon as Leslie steps foot in the kitchen, she is ready to help. She has been volunteering at The Nashville Food Project since 2014, and has since become an integral member of both the tight-knit community in our satellite kitchen at St. Luke’s Community House as well as our lively headquarters kitchen. 

Imagine a global community of caring where poverty, hunger and injustice are no more. Hard to picture, right? On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, we celebrate the life of Dr. King and reflect on his dream for a “beloved community” - the ultimate goal of nonviolent activism for peace and justice…

I want an apron with my name on it. I stopped working full time in January. I can’t quite bring myself to call it “retired.” But that’s really what it is. One of the nice things about it (there are tons of nice things about it) is I can choose where I want to spend my time and one of my favorite places has become The Nashville Food Project…

Bonnaroo teamed up with a group of varied nonprofits this year — including The Nashville Food Project — to host the festival’s first-ever, onsite service project making meal kits of beans and rice for more than 1,400 people. For our first food sharing opportunity with the kits, we brought more than 200 meal kits and produce to a housing community in North Nashville.

Each October, we celebrate our volunteers and the contribution that they make to The Nashville Food Project. In the past six months alone, volunteers have shared over 6,000 hours in our programs, a value of $154,560…

Bee Queen and Volunteer Extraordinaire are names that you may have heard people use in regards to Linda Bodfish. Linda started volunteering with The Nashville Food Project in 2012 and has been an integral part of TNFP's garden program over the years.