The Nashville Food Project’s Blog
How We Cooked in 2016
With the addition of several new meal partnerships, 2016 was a year of unprecedented growth in our meals program. We opened a second kitchen at St. Luke’s Community House, doubled our meals production, nearly tripled our food recovery efforts and added a total of FIVE new positions to our meals team!
With the addition of several new meal partnerships, 2016 was a year of unprecedented growth in our meals program! We opened a second kitchen at St. Luke’s Community House, doubled our meals production, nearly tripled our food recovery efforts and added a total of FIVE new positions to our meals team!
We can’t talk about changes in our meals program without starting with our biggest change - in March of 2016, we opened our second kitchen site at St. Luke’s Community House. This was an exciting opportunity to double our meals outputs while building a solid relationship with a new partner in St. Luke’s. We completed a minor renovation of the kitchen, adjusting the layout and bringing in new equipment and shelving to maximize the space and ensure that we worked efficiently while producing the healthiest meals possible.
Volunteer extraordinaire Ann Fundis led the opening of the new kitchen and worked tirelessly to get the kitchen up and running until permanent staff, Kelli Johnson and Sarah Morgan, were hired. We were able to expand our volunteer opportunities and add new morning prep times to support the kitchen. Thanks to an amazing team of HCA volunteers, we also built and initiated a robust new compost system at St. Luke’s to utilize any food waste generated by the kitchen. Through all these efforts, we’ve been able to provide more than 100 preschoolers and seniors with more high-quality fruits and vegetables five days a week.
Determined to make a real difference in the amount of usable food entering our city’s waste stream, we created the new position of Food Donations Coordinator. In the role, Booth Jewett, has strengthened partnerships with local farmers, grocers and markets to nearly triple the amount of food we recovered from 2015 to 2016. This has provided more than $150,000 of food to support our meals program while keeping costs down.
In addition to recovering more food, Booth has also initiated partnerships with 11 nonprofits to share excess donated food. These partners use this food in their own kitchens and stock client refrigerators, ensuring even more have reliable access to fresh food.
In our South Hall kitchen, we’ve also seen incredible growth, hiring new Meals Manager Christa Ross and Meals Assistant Kathleen Costello. This new staffing helped us increase South Hall meals outputs from just over 1,000 each week in 2015 to more than 1,300 each week in 2016. We added additional volunteer prep times, re-arranged the prep space and created new systems to make our work more efficient and ensure that we are making the best use of every resource we have!
How YOU Nourished Our City in 2016
The Nashville Food Project has always been an organization powered by the work of so many incredible community volunteers. In 2016 YOU helped us do more than ever before! Check out this Top Ten list of our 2016 volunteer program accomplishments.
The Nashville Food Project has always been an organization powered by the work of so many incredible community volunteers. In 2016 YOU helped us do more than ever before! Check out this Top Ten list of our 2016 volunteer program accomplishments:
10. We piloted an online volunteer sign-in system at our South Hall kitchen. As we continue to refine the program, we’ve loved the positive attitudes and helpful feedback we’ve received from volunteers. Our goal is to make volunteering an easy and fun experience from start to finish.
9. We welcomed a new Volunteer Coordinator, Mariah Ragland! Mariah joined the team to coordinate all volunteer activities and promote The Nashville Food Project to new groups of volunteers. It’s been wonderful to see volunteers embrace Mariah and work with her to continue improving The Nashville Food Project’s volunteer experience.
8. In addition to opening our second kitchen in partnership with St. Luke’s Community House in March, we added 10 new weekly volunteer opportunities to support the production of those meals. With your help we’ve been able to serve 1,330 meals a week to a new community!
7. We welcomed many new community and corporate partners as volunteers. New partners like Clyde’s On Church and Taco Mamacita have become regular volunteers. Existing partners like Jackson National Life Insurance have increased their volunteer efforts, helping us to continue to grow our work.
6. As our urban agriculture program expanded, so did volunteer opportunities in our new gardens! In 2016, we added ongoing volunteer activities in the McGruder Community Garden, Blackman Road Garden and Haywood Lane Garden.
5. On December 30 and 31st, volunteers helped us collect food and monetary donations at back-to-back Widespread Panic shows at Bridgestone arena. During these two nights, we collected almost $5,000 and 200 pounds of food to support our programs!
4. We implemented a new way to highlight our incredibly dedicated volunteers with a Volunteer of the Month recognition. Each month, our staff submits names of volunteers who have gone above and beyond typical volunteer activities. One outstanding volunteer is selected to be featured in our kitchens the following month. We love having another way to thank and recognize the many people who make our work possible.
3. While we’re so grateful for our dedicated, regular volunteers, we were excited to welcome many new faces in 2016! Organization-wide, each month an average of 370 unique volunteers served in our kitchens, in our gardens and on our food trucks.
2. The year kicked off in a big way when we were invited to recover food from a meat conference hosted at Gaylord Opryland Hotel. A group of 15 volunteers joined TNFP staff for a crazy night of sorting, packing, and storing more than 11,000 pounds of meat. This supplied our TNFP meals with meat from February through October, feeding more than 70,000 in our community!
1. We truly are blown away by the support of our community as we worked to nourish our city in 2016. Looking back on the year, we’re thrilled to say that 7,047 volunteers gave a total of 17,967 hours of volunteer service to The Nashville Food Project! The US Bureau of Labor Statistics values an hour of volunteer time at $23.56, meaning that TNFP volunteers gave a value of $423,303 of time to our community. Thank you!
How We Shared in 2016
Thanks to the support of our incredible community, in 2016 The Nashville Food Project shared more food than ever before! Through a new partnership with St. Luke’s Community House and the addition of eight new meal partners, we doubled our annual meals production from 50,000 to 16 partners in 2015 to over 114,000 to 23 partners in 2016!
Thanks to the support of our incredible community, in 2016 The Nashville Food Project shared more food than ever before! Through a new partnership with St. Luke’s Community House and the addition of eight new meal partners, we doubled our annual meals production from 50,000 to 16 partners in 2015 to over 114,000 to 23 partners in 2016!
“Our students have been more open to trying new foods. We see a better attitude, more even energy & well balanced moods on TNFP food days. Our community suppers have helped us unite our families & staff.”
“[The Nashville Food Project’s meals have] allowed us focus on independent skill-building by treating this as restaurant/learning opportunity. Our clients have had access to new, nutrient dense foods that they have loved.”
In 2016, we increased our food recovery efforts, recovering over 108,000 pounds of food that would otherwise be thrown away. About one quarter of all recovered food was shared with new partner organizations. These partners used the food in their own kitchens and helped stock refrigerators for their residents and clients. This ensured that even more families had reliable access to fresh, healthy food.
