Bringing People Together

At The Nashville Food Project, cultivating community is at the heart of everything we do. Our meals bring people together around tables to be nourished in body and spirit. Our gardens gather neighbors to nurture the soil and one another. Our volunteers work joyfully alongside us every single day to accomplish our mission. And our supporters sustain this work by investing in a vision for this city where everyone has enough food, and people to eat it with too. 

Daily, we experience the ability of food to foster health, belonging and justice in our community. In 2022, we saw the power of food not only in the produce grown and meals shared, but in the stories our community told about the ways that food nourished their lives.

With a growing network of Nashvillians, we’re working to build a resilient and equitable food system for everyone in our city. This work is incremental and ongoing, but each day we are widening the path for justice in the food system we have inherited. The truth is that there is already enough food for everyone in our community. The task remains to nourish one another now, while creating a just and sustainable food system where everyone has the food they want and need.

Community Meals
We prepare healthy, scratch-made meals to share in partnership with other community-based organizations across the city. By supporting their vital work with food, we amplify our collective impact to disrupt cycles of poverty and create a community where everyone thrives. In 2022, we cooked an average of 5,582 meals a week, shared with partners at 70 sites.

Food Recovery
We glean excess produce and other perishables from grocers and farms to divert quality food from the landfill. By prioritizing the highest, best use of the abundant food already in our community, we care for the environment and alleviate hunger at the same time. In 2022, we rescued over 213,000 pounds of edible, delicious food, comprising nearly three quarters of our meals.

Community Gardens
We grow food alongside community members at gardens in both North and South Nashville: areas of the city historically excluded from equitable access to healthy food and green space. Our community gardens are outdoor classrooms, urban sanctuaries, and community spaces where nearly 100 gardeners grow food for themselves, their families, and their neighbors.

Growing Together
We engage farmers from immigrant and refugee backgrounds to grow produce for personal income by providing access to land, resources, and local markets. In 2022, seven farmers grew 27,000 pounds of food on just an acre of farmland, generating more than $96,000 in collective income. Also this year, Growing Together welcomed its first apprentice, creating a new pathway into the program for aspiring farmers.

Produce Sharing
We envision a city where everyone has access to the food they need and want — in some cases, that means providing communities the resources to prepare their own healthy meals. We share food grown in our gardens and from local farms to provide reliable access to fresh, culturally appropriate produce across our network of partner organizations. In 2022, we shared nearly 16,000 pounds of fresh produce with seven communities.

Just behind Trevecca Community Church is an affordable housing community of nearly 600 residents. The closest grocery store is a 30-minute bus ride away. A few years ago, the church responded to the neighborhood’s lack of fresh food through Project Glean, a free farm stand for the community. This year’s Project Glean featured Growing Together CSA shares purchased by church members and distributed in community.

The Growing Together program program provides farmers — all of whom came to the U.S. as refugees or immigrants — with access to land, training, and market opportunities in our local food system.  The Growing Together farm is a special place for cultivating community through meaningful work, where farmers experience belonging and purpose through the unique skills and incredible spirit they bring to the farm every day.