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.
Volunteer Appreciation Week: Community in the Kitchen
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.
Denise and Amy: Sisters from Another Mister
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.
Reminding Each Other of the Goodness
Leslie’s Reliable Joy
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.
Hard things and simmering soups
Garden volunteer extraordinaire, Linda Bodfish once said that when the needs change, we change with them. And as we’ve been in the fields, passing bags along (metaphorically and for some staff, quite literally), there have been moments of clarity when we see the opportunity of these moments of crisis. We are challenged to recenter our work around TNFP’s core values and move in a common rhythm to meet the ever-changing needs of our neighbors.
Beloved Community
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…
An Apron With My Name
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 Service Project Leads to Meaningful Meal Sharing
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.
Triple Your Impact: A Crowdfunding Guide
Volunteer Spotlight: Linda
Strobel Award Recognitions
The Heroes Among Us
Rhythm in the Kitchen
We All Need Something
While We're Here
On a typical Tuesday our South Hall kitchen is filled with a steady group of diverse and dedicated volunteers, and you can’t escape the good vibes. Today, cherry sorting is increased with the help of the background music, not to mention it led to the first common ground and opening to discuss the focus of this blog: friendship.
How YOU Nourished Our City in 2016
Guest Chef Series: Hal Holden-Bache and Jaime Miller of Lockeland Table
Chef Hal Holden-Bache of Lockeland Table has been cooking with love in his heart since at least age 8. That’s when he began giving his “hard-working mother some time off,” he says. “I enjoyed cooking more than I did my homework. She allowed me to do that.”
Celebrating Interdependence on Independence Day
It’s not every day that you get a request from a volunteer group for ideas for “something big” to partner on, but that’s just what happened with local restaurant group Strategic Hospitality.
Guest Chef Series: Hattie B's Hot Chicken
When we invite professionals to our kitchens each month for the Guest Chef Series, it often feels like a family affair with husband and wife teams or kitchen crews generously taking a break from their regular days to prepare a meal in our space. But it has never felt quite like the family reunion as when the clan of Hattie B's Hot Chicken pitched in to help…