Food & Faith Conference: Building a More Connected Hunger Response

Care does not stand alone. It is shaped by values, systems, and shared responsibility.

On Saturday, February 21, 2026, The Nashville Food Project will join faith communities and local organizations from across the city for the 2026 Food & Faith Conference, held from 8:30 AM to 1:00 PM at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Nashville.

The Food & Faith Conference creates space for learning, reflection, and collaboration around food insecurity in the greater Nashville area. As an organization rooted in partnership, we believe hunger relief is strongest when communities work together across differences, grounded in shared values and a commitment to care.

This gathering invites participants to better understand the realities of food access in our region and to explore the many ways faith communities and local organizations can be part of the solution. Through conversation and shared learning, the conference aims to break down silos and strengthen the network of people and organizations responding to hunger across Nashville.

Throughout the morning, participants will engage with topics including community gardening, orchards, hot meals, food pantries, and advocacy. The conference is designed to be practical, relational, and grounded in the lived experiences of neighbors and the organizations that serve alongside them.

At The Nashville Food Project, we bring people together to cultivate community and alleviate hunger. The Food & Faith Conference reflects that commitment by creating a space where values, action, and collaboration meet, and where care is understood as something we carry together.

We invite faith leaders, congregants, nonprofit partners, and community members to join us for this morning of shared learning and connection.

Event Details

Food & Faith Conference
Saturday, February 21, 2026
8:30 AM–1:00 PM
Westminster Presbyterian Church
3900 West End Avenue
Nashville, TN 37205

Registration is required. Additional details and registration information are available online.

First Taste: An Introduction to The Nashville Food Project

At The Nashville Food Project, we believe understanding the full picture of our work matters. How food moves through our city, how partnerships support neighbors, and how daily actions connect to long-term change are all part of the story we’re continually sharing.

On Thursday, February 19, 2026, we invite the community to join us for First Taste: An Introduction to The Nashville Food Project, from 12:00 to 1:00 PM at our headquarters at 5904 California Avenue in Nashville.

First Taste is designed for anyone interested in learning more about our work, whether you’re new to The Nashville Food Project, a long-time volunteer, a program participant, or simply curious about how we bring people together to cultivate community and alleviate hunger across Nashville.

During this hour-long session, we’ll offer a short presentation introducing our mission, vision, and core areas of work, followed by plenty of time for questions and conversation. Light refreshments will be provided, and the space is intended to be welcoming, informative, and relational.

At The Nashville Food Project, transparency and connection are central to how we operate. First Taste offers a chance to step back, ask questions, and better understand how our kitchens, gardens, food recovery, and partnerships work together each day to support neighbors across the city.

Our headquarters is accessible, with a ramp located on the west side of the building and all-gender, accessible restrooms available for visitor use. First Taste sessions are currently facilitated in English. If you require accommodations to participate, please let us know in the comment section when you RSVP so arrangements can be made.

We’re glad to offer this space for learning and connection, and we look forward to welcoming you.

Event Details

First Taste: An Introduction to The Nashville Food Project
Thursday, February 19, 2026
12:00–1:00 PM
The Nashville Food Project
5904 California Avenue
Nashville, TN 37209

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is encouraged.

Love in Action: A Community Open House at The Nashville Food Project

As Nashville continues to recover from Winter Storm Fern, the impacts of the storm remain present for many neighbors across the city. While the immediate emergency has passed, the work of care, nourishment, and recovery continues.

On Thursday, February 12, 2026, we will host Love in Action: A Community Open House, an evening gathering that centers connection, gratitude, and the nonprofit partnerships that make this work possible.

The event will take place from 5:30 to 8:00 PM at The Nashville Food Project, located at 5904 California Avenue in Nashville. The gathering is open to the public, and registration is free.

Our mission remains steady. We bring people together to cultivate community and alleviate hunger in our city, before, during, and after moments of disruption. Winter Storm Fern underscored how essential partnership and coordination are to ensuring food continues to reach neighbors when systems are strained.

Love in Action is an opportunity to pause, reconnect, and honor the nonprofit partners who help carry this work forward every day. These partners are on the front lines of supporting neighbors across Nashville, and our Community Meals partnerships allow them to remain focused on their core work while we provide warm, nourishing meals that move through their programs.

During the evening, guests are invited to enjoy light refreshments, spend time connecting with one another, and take part in a hands-on service project creating Valentine’s cards and small treats for our meal partners. A photo booth will be available, and a brief presentation will highlight the powerful, poverty-disrupting work our partners continue to lead across the city.

This gathering is not a fundraiser or a formal program. It is simply a moment to be together, to acknowledge the challenges of the past weeks, and to honor the relationships that sustain our community, especially in times of disruption.

As recovery continues across Nashville, we believe care is something we practice together. We invite neighbors, partners, and community members to join us for an evening rooted in connection, creativity, and gratitude.

Event Details

Love in Action: A Community Open House
Thursday, February 12, 2026
5:30–8:00 PM
The Nashville Food Project
5904 California Avenue
Nashville, TN 37209

Registration is free. Media and community members are welcome.

Building a Caring Community

Care is rarely dramatic.

More often, it is steady. It looks like meals prepared on schedule. Routes driven again. Kitchens opened on cold mornings. Volunteers returning, not for recognition, but because someone is counting on them.

For many of our neighbors, especially seniors and those who rely on regular meals, care is not an occasional kindness. It is a necessity shaped by consistency. Hunger does not pause for weather or calendars. Nourishment must remain reliable if it is to be dignified.

For us, care takes the form of rhythm. Food is grown, recovered, prepared, and shared not only in moments of urgency, but day after day. Seniors living on fixed incomes. Neighbors managing chronic illness. People navigating isolation. For them, a steady meal is more than food. It is reassurance. It is stability. It is the quiet knowledge that someone remembered.

This kind of care is built over time. Through repetition. Through trust earned slowly. Through systems designed to endure and people willing to carry responsibility together. It is not flashy work. But it is faithful work.

We often measure impact in numbers, and those numbers matter. But the deeper story of care lives in consistency. In the volunteer who learns a delivery route by heart. In the cook who prepares each meal with the same attention, whether the room is full or nearly empty. In the neighbor who opens their door each week knowing that care will arrive as promised.

Caring community is not built only in moments of crisis. It is built through reliability. Through showing up even when it is cold. Especially then.

This is how nourishment becomes human. Not as charity, but as relationship. Not as a one time response, but as a shared practice. Some neighbors depend on this work, and that dependence is not a failure. It is a reflection of our shared life together.

As this work continues, we remain grateful for everyone who makes steady care possible. The volunteers who return. The partners who remain committed. The supporters who understand that consistency is its own form of generosity.

Supporting neighbors day after day is how caring community takes shape.

Supporting neighbors, day after day
Steady care

Get involved:
Volunteer | Give Food | Donate

Growing Multigenerational Community at McGruder Garden

In 2009, an advisory board for a community center in North Nashville formed, and one of the responses from the community was a desire for a space to grow. In addition to the garden being a gathering place for community and a sacred green space in a fast-growing city, it also proposed a solution to the neighborhood’s lack of access to fresh food — there was no grocery store in North Nashville.

14 years later, many of the garden’s original growers — including founders Rev. and Mrs. Beach — still come to McGruder Community Garden each week. It’s a space where people from all walks of life work together to grow whatever they want — be it okra, dill or marigolds — for themselves, their families and their community.

Check out this video and take a look at a typical morning at McGruder!