Meal Partnerships, Meals, Community, Poverty & Food Insecurity
Jenny Barker
Fueling Potential: How Summer Meals Support ...

At the Andrew Jackson Clubhouse of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Middle Tennessee, kids are spending the summer learning, growing—and thanks to The Nashville Food Project’s made-from-scratch meals—staying nourished, too.

Through the Sweet Peas Summer Eats for Kids program, sponsored by Jackson®, hundreds of healthy meals are delivered each week to support youth during a time when access to regular food can drop off.

This partnership is part of The Nashville Food Project’s Community Meals program, which brings nutritious food directly to organizations already creating safe, supportive spaces for young people.

Now in its sixth year, the collaboration with Jackson is helping serve over 100,000 meals this summer—fueling not just plates, but potential across the city.

Fueling Potential: How Summer Meals Support Youth at the Boys & Girls Club
Community, Gardens, Volunteers
The Nashville Food Project
The Community Agriculture Network Is Live—And ...

The Community Agriculture Network is a collaboration of growing spaces—community gardens, church plots, urban farms, and orchards—each managed by trusted leaders in their respective communities. These sites are independently managed but supported by TNFP through shared tools, technical assistance, access to seed and compost, and a network of volunteers and educators.

The Community Agriculture Network Is Live—And Growing!

Gardens

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Grow With Us: Community Garden Beds Now Available

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At The Nashville Food Project, growing food is about more than what ends up on the plate. It’s about stewardship, shared learning, and the relationships that form when neighbors come together around the land.

We’re excited to share that community garden beds are now available at McGruder Community Garden and Mill Ridge Community Farm for the upcoming season. These spaces are open to individuals and families who want to grow fresh food while being part of a supportive, connected gardening community.

Our community garden beds offer more than a place to plant. Gardeners receive access to shared tools, compost and soil support, educational opportunities throughout the season, and connection with other neighbors who are growing alongside them. Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just getting started, these gardens are designed to meet people where they are.

At The Nashville Food Project, we believe growing food together strengthens both individual wellbeing and collective care. Our gardens are places where questions are welcome, learning is shared, and relationships deepen over time.

Garden beds are limited and available on a first-come basis. We encourage anyone interested in growing with us this season to register early to reserve a space.

What’s Included with a Garden Bed

  • Access to shared tools

  • Compost and soil support

  • Educational opportunities throughout the season

  • Community connection and shared learning

Garden Locations

How to Register

Please fill out the application below.

Garden beds are limited, and spaces will be filled as registrations are received.

Garden Plot Enrollment Form

If you have questions about community gardens or the registration process, please reach out to gardens@thenashvillefoodproject.org.

We’re looking forward to another season of growing together and welcoming neighbors into these shared spaces.

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Planting for the Future

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Planting for the Future

Community orchards are long-term investments. They ask us to think beyond a single growing season and consider what sustained nourishment can look like over time. Once established, this orchard will provide fresh fruit for community partners and neighbors, while also serving as a shared space for learning, connection, and stewardship.

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Looking Back at Nourish 2025

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Looking Back at Nourish 2025

Nourish 2025 was a powerful celebration of food, community, and connection. From a beautifully collaborative meal prepared by top chefs to stories that highlighted the heart of our mission, the evening brought people together around a shared table and a shared purpose—to nourish Nashville.

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The Community Agriculture Network Is Live—And Growing!

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The Community Agriculture Network Is Live—And Growing!

The Community Agriculture Network is a collaboration of growing spaces—community gardens, church plots, urban farms, and orchards—each managed by trusted leaders in their respective communities. These sites are independently managed but supported by TNFP through shared tools, technical assistance, access to seed and compost, and a network of volunteers and educators.

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Brooklyn Heights, Cosecha, and TNFP team up to grow something powerful in Nashville

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The Nashville Food Project has a new partnership with Brooklyn Heights Community Garden and Cosecha Community Development, thanks to a USDA Community Food Projects grant. The three organizations are working together to increase local access to fresh fruit and veggies. That includes some free produce boxes, new produce markets, and new gardening and wellness classes.

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Sustaining Change: Three Years of Block to Block

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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. 

Expanding McGruder Community Garden

Now in its fifteenth growing season, McGruder Community Garden is a space where people from all walks of life gather to find connection, learn from one another, and grow food for themselves and their communities. The garden includes several colorful raised garden beds, a pollinator garden full of fresh flowers, and a small orchard of fruit trees, and is lovingly tended  by community members in partnership with The Nashville Food Project. Recently, a team helped us install 12 more raised beds, expanding our production capacity by 50 percent.

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Growing Multigenerational Community at McGruder Garden

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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!

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Q&A with Justin Hiltner, featured musician for our 10th Anniversary Picnic Party

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When banjoist, songwriter, journalist and activist Justin Hiltner recorded a set at our headquarters for the upcoming 10th Anniversary Picnic Party, he took a minute to introduce a new song about “anxiety and growing Old Tennessee melons, called Muskmelons.”

A whole song about growing melons? We were obviously smitten.

To say we have loved working with Justin for this event would be an understatement. Learn more about him below, and don’t miss the streamed show, which will air Sunday, September 26!

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Partner Spotlight: Growing Together + Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition

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Growing Together Manager Tallahassee May writes about the farmers’ produce-sharing partnership with Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

“In growing food for local sales and distribution, [the farmers] have the autonomy to grow food that is both culturally meaningful to them as well as crops that support relationship-building with different cultures.”

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Partner Spotlight: Elmahaba Center

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We spotlight Elmahaba Center, a nonprofit serving the Arabic-speaking community, as well Ashraf Azer, interpreter for the Arabic-speaking gardeners at the Community Farm at Mill Ridge. We are privileged to host seven Egyptian gardeners on the farm this season and have loved learning about a specific type of green used to make Molokhia, a beloved Egyptian soup.

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Partner Spotlight: Darrell Hawks of Friends of Mill Ridge Park

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The Nashville Food Project stewards a portion of Mill Ridge Park as the Community Farm at Mill Ridge, as space that currently hosts about 80 community garden participant families. Our partnership with Friends of Mill Ridge Park (FMRP) has been essential in the continued success of TNFP’s efforts to create infrastructure and land access opportunities for folks to grow their own food in the South East Nashville area. As we celebrate the ways that our work is intertwined with other types of environmental justice work in Nashville, we spoke with FMRP Executive Director, Darrell Hawks.

Starting a Community Garden

Over the years, we’ve witnessed the benefits of community gardens firsthand. Participants tell us they experience improved physical and mental health as well as a stronger sense of belonging.

But in addition to participants in our own programs, we also hear from folks who want to start community gardens of their own. If you’re interested in assembling a group and inspiring change, as we are, then here are a few good places to start: