News & Highlights
Community Stories
At The Nashville Food Project, everything we do revolves around bringing people together over food. Read how sharing food, labor, and time strengthens community bonds.
Nourish 2024: Highlights, Impact & More
Nourish 2024, Kristen Drum
Nourish is our annual fundraising dinner where we bring together Nashville’s most innovative chefs for an evening of delicious food, fine wine, and a good time. This year featured an incredible line up of lauded chefs: Julio Hernandez of Maiz de la Vida, Leina Horii & Brian Lea of Kisser, Tiffani Ortiz & Andy Doubrava of The Catbird Seat, Colby Rasavong of Bad Idea, Vivek Surti of Tailor, and Levon & Kim Wallace of FatBelly Pretzel Bakery & Deli. Julio even won Iron Fork 2024, a local chef competition benefitting our work, prior to Nourish.
Through this event, we were able to raise over $260,000 to continue our efforts in fighting food insecurity and growing community. Check out our blog post to learn more.
The Nashville Food Projects Supports New Transit Plan
Food insecurity often derives from a lack of access. Transportation is inextricably linked to food security, and is the highest barrier to accessing fresh, nutritious food — even more than increasing food prices. The relevance of transportation to food access and security is why The Nashville Food Project and other community groups are supporting Mayor O’Connell’s new transportation plan. To find out more about this initiative check out this blog series and the linked articles below.
2024 Yield Giving Award Winners
In 2024, The Nashville Food Project was one of a few local nonprofits to receive generous funding from MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving. We received $1 million to support funding our work working with people and in places with the greatest need in the U.S. Read more about this award and what it means to us here. But don’t just take our word for it — find out more from local media coverage.
Inside Philanthropy, 2024 | Nashville Post, 2024 | NBJ, 2024
Supporting a Holistically Healthy Nashville
We all know that food is instrumental to health, but unfortunately many communities lack the necessary tools and access to enjoy good food and sustainable health practices. North Nashville is one area that has historically been underserved in creating health and food equity. Hypertension, commonly known as high blood pressure, is a direct result of this disparity and has been impacting North Nashville disproportionately. In response, this February, the Nashville Wellness Collaborative launched Heart of Nashville: a two-year pilot program designed to improve health outcomes in North Nashville. The Nashville Food Project along with numerous other local organizations that make up the Collaborative have been working ever since to pair clinical care with wellness support services that help North Nashville residents overcome systemic obstacles. To read more about the Wellness Collaborative, read our blog or explore the video and articles linked below.
Block to Block: Reconnecting Neighborhoods with Community Gardens
Love, TIto’s, the philanthropic arm of Tito’s Handmade Vodka, has supported our community farms and gardens since 2022 with major infrastructure updates and invaluable volunteer power. Learn more about this partnership and its iterations across our garden sites below!
We Can’t Do It Alone!
The Nashville Food Project doesn’t exist without community partnerships and support. The links below showcase just a few examples of how volunteers, donations, and partnerships keep us running! To read more and learn how you can get involved yourself check out the pages under our Act tab.
FeedBack Nashville
FeedBack Nashville leverages a systems change approach to build a better food future for our city. The work of this initiative centers on providing food security and food access for all, limiting food waste and environmental harm, building community, and strengthening Nashville’s local food and agricultural economy. We serve as the coordinator for the initiative.
To learn more about FeedBack Nashville read more in the articles below, or visit our blog.
WPLN, 2024 | WKRN, 2023 | Channel 5 News, 2023 | Nashville Scene, 2023 | Nash Today, 2023
The Community Farm at Mill Ridge
The Nashville Food Project has partnered with Metro Parks Department to maintain a lasting partnership between our community garden programs and the Mill Ridge Park in Antioch. This community garden partnership program will allow us to expand Nashvillians’ access to food they want and need, supporting families in growing their own food by providing land, resources and education. To learn more about this ongoing partnership and our garden at Mill Ridge check out our community gardens page or click on any of the links below!
Growing Together Garden Program
Growing Together is a market garden program designed to expand access and opportunity to people from agrarian backgrounds through access to land, resources, training and technical assistance, and marketing support. Growing Together currently supports farmers who arrived in the U.S. as refugees from Burma and Bhutan to support them in growing produce to sell, generating personal income and building community food security along the way. The Growing Together farmers provide fresh, locally grown vegetables throughout Nashville through our veggie boxes and The Nashville Food Project community partners. Learn more about Growing Together by clinking on any of the links, or visiting our Growing Together page.
Get to Know The Nashville Food Project
Browse stories by our community and for the community about who we are, what we do, and why work like this matters!
Who We Are
Click through any of the links below to learn more about a few of the key figures below behind the organization. You can also check out our staff page for a fuller look into who we are!
Tallu Schuyler Quinn, Founder
C.J. Sentell, CEO
Bianca Morton, Chief Culinary Officer
Learn more about what we do
C.J. talks about who The Nashville Food Project is and what we do.
The Tennessean, Community-Supported Agriculture | Nashville Health, Partner Spotlight on The Nashville Food Project
Nashville Scene, 10 Years of The Nashville Food Project | NY Times, Feeding the Hungry One Wholesome Meal at a Time
The Why Behind Our Mission
We know that 1 in 8 Nashvillians face food insecurity while 40% of all food is wasted. Check out some resources that help us understand our current reality and imagine a better food future.
If you are seeking even more information about The Nashville Food Project, check out the news archive.
Awards & Achievements
2020 Phila Awards: The Serving Spoon
The Phila Awards celebrate Phila Rawlings Hach by recognizing the people and organizations who nourish our communities. In 2020, The Nashville Food Project won the People’s Choice for The Serving Spoon Award. We were recognized as an organization for using resources like food and community to address issues like hunger, food insecurity, and self-sufficiency. Thank you to The Phila’s and thank you to our partners in the community who make our work possible!
The Phila Awards
Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award, TN Department of Environment & Conservation
2020 Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award Winner, Pursuit of Excellence
The Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Awards honor those who commit to preserving the environment and find innovative ways to do it. As a previous award winner of this award, The Nashville Food Project was chosen for the Pursuit of Excellence honor to recognize our distinguished, continued efforts and high regard for environmental stewardship. Thank you to the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation for this honor, and thank you to our partners in the community who help make this possible!
2019-2020 Tennessee Recycling Coalition Recycler of the Year
The Tennessee Recycling Coalition recognizes Tennessee individuals, organizations and businesses that have demonstrated outstanding commitment and achievement to waste prevention and recycling. The Nashville Food Project won this award for the 2020 year based on our 2019 programming year, dedicated to food recovery, partnership-based community meals, expanding our urban and market gardens.
TN Recycling Coalition
Center for Nonprofit Management, Salute to Excellence Award Winner (2018)
Center for Nonprofit Management Salute to Excellence Winner of The Healing Trust Award for Compassionate Care (2018)
The Salute to Excellence awards are one of many ways The Center for Nonprofit Management supports nonprofit organizations. During these awards they take time to recognize and honor individuals, teams and the work they do. In 2018, The Nashville Food Project was one of these honorees, winning The Healing Trust Award for Compassionate Care. As a winner we were recognized our exceptional love and care, not just through our work, but also for how our team works together. Thank you to the Center for Nonprofit Management for this recognition and thank you to each and every individual who has ever worked with and for our team!
Bank of America Neighborhood Builder (2017)
During our 2017 capital campaign to build our new headquarters, The Nashville Food Project was chosen to partner with Bank of America through their Neighborhood Builders Program. We were chosen to join The Neighborhood Builders program for our commitment to community building and relieving hunger. Thank you to Bank of America for this recognition and their generous support, and thank you to our partners for doing this work with us!
Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award, TN Department of Environment & Conservation
Governor's Environmental Stewardship Award for Excellence in Materials Management (2017)
In 2017, The Nashville Food Project was chosen as a winner of the Governor’s Environmental Stewardship for Excellence in Materials Management. The Governor’s office along with the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation choose winners based on their innovative solutions and voluntary commitment to responsible environmental stewardship. The Nashville Food Project was chosen as a winner for the Materials Management category for our dedication to rescuing, growing, and sharing food which helps us support the natural environment and our community. Thank you to the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation for this honor, and thank you to our partners in the community who help make this possible!
The Frist Foundation Award for Excellence in Revenue Development (2017)
The Nashville Food Project won The Frist Foundation Award for Excellence in Revenue Development. This award recognizes organizations that find innovative, efficient methods to support community work despite rough patches and challenges. We were recognized for our contract meals program provides mission-aligned nonprofits with ongoing high quality meals. Thank you to The Frist Foundation this recognition and thank you to all of our community partnerships, we could not do this work without you!
