The Nashville Food Project’s Blog
Reflecting on Summer's Sweet Peas
Over the summer, our meals were prepared, packaged and delivered to 16 meal partners for Sweet Peas, a summer program sharing healthful meals with kids during the critical months when school is out. Also critical, Sweet Peas happens thanks to the generous financial support of sponsor Jackson®, which funded the program to help share more than 18,000 meals this summer!
Katie Scarboro remembers hearing from a parent who was shocked when her child requested fruit rather than chips at the grocery store. The child had tasted grapes or strawberries for the first time during YMCA Fun Company programming.
“The parent was just floored that the kid had that kind of response,” she says.
Truth be told though, Katie says she hears similar stories often as Anti-Hunger Initiatives Director at the YMCA of Middle Tennessee — especially when it comes to the fruit.
”They cannot get enough of it,” she says. “You’d have kids come back over and over for fruit salad. And when you have kids who have the world at their fingertips in terms of gummy bears and candy in general and prefer to eat fruit salad? That’s fantastic.”
While fruit might seem simple, it takes a lot of collaboration to get salads like this one — and other snacks and meals — to the table.
The Nashville Food Project often relies on donations of fruit from partners like Whole Foods Market, Costco, local farmers or generous suppliers such as The Peach Truck. The fruit salads go alongside snacks or meals such as barbecue chicken and roasted vegetables. They’re prepared, packaged and delivered to 16 meal partners (such as YMCA Fun Company) for Sweet Peas, a summer program sharing healthful meals with kids during the critical months when school is out. Also critical, Sweet Peas happens thanks to the generous financial support of sponsor Jackson®, which funded the program to help share more than 18,000 meals this summer!
“In the summer we know the need is so much greater,” Katie says. “We also know that kids get a break from school in the summer, but parents don’t get a break from work during the summer. They still have the same hardships of providing care and food for their kids for the summer as the entire school year. We want to try to bridge that gap as much as we possibly can.”
Fun Company provides all day care through their Summer Adventure Programming, beginning at 6 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m., which gives kids a safe place to be along with a meal or snacks. “It helps the parents not have to worry about rushing home to cook a hot meal or get fast food on the way back,” Katie says.
This year, the YMCA staff also helped facilitate the new Promising Scholars program, which helps kids catch up on the learning loss that happened during the pandemic and virtual learning. Even still, Katie noted the ongoing and new phase of pandemic life: “We know that things have improved for some and not improved for others— and have gotten drastically worse for other folks.”
In addition to YMCA Fun Company, Jackson® funding allowed Sweet Peas and TNFP to partner with 15 additional organizations such as Nations Ministry, Preston Taylor, NICE, Project Transformation, Nashville Freedom School and LETS Play.
In summer months, we thankfully have a range of fresh produce to inspire meals to provide “not just food but good, healthy and whole food,” Katie says.
“It’s really nice to have mixed greens,” she adds. “They start to wonder why there’s a little green stripe or red stripe in this leaf. It opens up a bigger conversation about the world of food.”
As the Sweet Peas program comes to a close, we reflect with gratitude for the many hands and hearts that funded, fueled and fed this work.
“We have parents or kids who will say, ‘We just really appreciate this existing and this being there in our community,’” Katie says. “We are really grateful that things like this exist and center around helping us meet the need as the need has been presented. It’s an integral part of the work we’re able to do.”
Painting a Future Together
How do you create a community? It’s a big question with a complex answer. At The Nashville Food Project we believe it happens one meal and one relationship at a time. St. Luke’s Community House and TNFP are teaming up to paint a future filled with connection and meals for even more Nashvillians by sharing a space at St. Luke's called the Mural Room.
How do you create a community? It’s a big question with a complex answer. At The Nashville Food Project we believe it happens one meal and one relationship at a time. St. Luke’s Community House and TNFP are teaming up to paint a future filled with connection and meals for even more Nashvillians by sharing a space at St. Luke's called the Mural Room.
In May, the doors to the Mural Room were opened to the The Nashville Food Project to use as a meal prep space. Since 2004, the mural room has been used as a conference, meeting and program space which could be divided into two rooms. Its name comes from the inspiring and reflective mural showcased on its back wall featuring the old Tennessee State Penitentiary, This N’ That Thrift Store, and the community members in between. The mural was a collaboration project between St. Luke’s and the Frist Museum. An artist worked with children to complete a three part mural depicting the history of St. Luke’s and its community partners. Now, 14 years later, The Nashville Food Project is a collaborator and symbiotic partner sharing half of the namesake room.
What difference does a half of a room make? Kelli Johnson, TNFP St. Luke’s Kitchen Manager says “It’s really been a game changer in the amount we can do. We’ve doubled our number of volunteers. And we’ve hired another staff member to oversee volunteers. We’ll also be making 650 meals a day.” To give you perspective, two years ago TNFP was preparing 150 meals each day in the St. Luke’s kitchen. The bump in capacity has allowed us to take on four new sites this summer - 2 YMCA Summer Camps, an open Picnic at McGruder Family Resource Center (next to our garden), and the Margaret Maddox YMCA. Having access to the mural room has allowed us to touch each of these sites and provide healthy meals to children who may not have consistent meals now that school is out.
St. Luke’s and TNFP have a supportive relationship. TNFP is able to reside and access the St. Luke’s Kitchen for any project supporting our mission. In exchange we make sure that St. Luke’s program participants are getting nourishing food in their preschool and senior mobile meal programs. The impact is easy to see.
“When you walk through the preschool at lunchtime, you won’t see microwaved corn dogs, syrupy canned peaches or honey buns anymore. You will see homemade turkey pot pie with fresh fruit salad and a homemade oatmeal cookie. It’s amazing to see what kids can do when they are nourished – mind, body and soul!
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We are so grateful and excited to be a part of the Nations community and for our second home at St. Luke’s Community House. Every year we both support each other to ensure the health and vitality of the neighborhoods that we serve. What’s the next step? Another mural in the mural room with our ever continuing story of sharing nourishing food and building community relationships.
For more information about St. Luke’s Community House visit their website at www.stlch.org. To volunteer at the TNFP’s St. Luke’s Kitchen sign up here.