Growing Together to Build Food Security

Can you imagine 27,000 pounds of produce? Now picture that being grown by the patient hands of just four families on less than a single acre of land. This is the work of Growing Together, an urban farm in southeast Nashville jointly stewarded by immigrant and refugee farmers and The Nashville Food Project.

In the warmest, busiest months, the Growing Together farm is overflowing with handmade trellises of tomatoes, towering okra plants, and bright red Dalle Khursani, Nepali hot peppers. The farmers, who all came to the U.S. from Bhutan and Myanmar, tend crops from their home countries alongside Middle Tennessee favorites. Cabbages thrive next to creeping vines of bitter gourd. Many languages echo across the field as farmers trade jokes and bits of advice. 

“Our exchange of knowledge makes me a more successful grower,” says La Sai Roi, a Burmese farmer who has been with the Growing Together program since 2021. “I am so thankful for this program and all the farmers.”

The farm is as multigenerational as it is multicultural. People of all ages cultivate thriving rows, wash bundles of spinach under tents, and pack veggie boxes for pickup. Growing traditions with origins in the farmers’ home countries, like seed saving or companion planting, are passed down to younger generations through practical experience.  It’s a close-knit community where farmers continually deepen connections to their countries of origin and to each other. 

The farm’s Community Supported Agriculture program extends a pathway for farmers to get more plugged into the local community, forming meaningful relationships with customers while generating income that supports family webs in Nashville and beyond. If you’re looking to cook with a wider variety of veggies, support immigrant and refugee farmers, and build community food security along the way, consider supporting Growing Together this spring by purchasing a CSA share.

Bianca Morton, Chief Culinary Officer of The Nashville Food Project

Bianca Morton was in culinary school, watching an instructor whisk together milk and flour to make béchamel sauce, when it dawned on her: she had watched her mother make the same thing her whole life. It was just mac and cheese sauce. 

Since that day, she’s experienced the same moment of recognition many times over. In fact, it’s been a theme of Chef Bianca’s four years at The Nashville Food Project – remarkable food, without pretense — served to after-school programs, immigrant communities, homeless outreach organizations and so many others across the city. 

“You can call it whatever you want, but at the end of the day, good food is good food,” she says.

Bianca was the first-ever employee of The Nashville Food Project with a culinary degree. When the organization hired her in 2018, they were just months away from moving into a brand-new building with a commercial kitchen — a pretty drastic change from their beginnings in a modest church kitchen. The meals team was trading pots and pans for shiny braising tilt skillets that could hold up to 40 gallons. And with the addition of Bianca, they were ready for it. Almost overnight, food production scaled up from 75 to 750 servings at a time. 

Now, as Chief Culinary Officer, Bianca entrusts her team with the daily tasks of food preparation — the systems she put in place years ago means they can cook 1,200 meals each day like clockwork. Instead, she’s creating ways to invite Nashvillians into her expansive culinary world and finding hope in the fact that people from marginalized communities get to taste butternut squash because of the work she’s doing at the Food Project.

“I grew up in a food desert,” she explains. “I didn’t know what a butternut squash was. But this role gives me the opportunity to introduce foods like that to kids in the same situations — I get to show them that there is more out there. Your current circumstance is not a limiting factor in how far you can go.”

Her words echo the organization’s vision for a Nashville where everyone has access to the food they both need and want: a world where good food is not off-limits to certain people, in certain neighborhoods. A world in which bottle gourds and garlic cloves are the doorway to thriving communities.

“This is not just my job — this is who I am, as a chef and as a person,” she says.

Bianca has earned her white chef’s coat a thousand times over. But she doesn’t need it to validate her deep understanding of the transformative power of food. She’ll just keep coming to the kitchen with her passion for delicious, nutritious, approachable food, using béchamel sauce to make mac and cheese. 

Leslie’s Reliable Joy

Leslie DiNella’s smile is contagious. 

As soon as Leslie steps foot in the kitchen, she is ready to help. She has been volunteering at The Nashville Food Project since 2014, and has since become an integral member of both the tight-knit community in our satellite kitchen at St. Luke’s Community House as well as our lively headquarters kitchen.    

Leslie shares, “Around 2014 while searching for a volunteer project that I could do with my teenagers around the holidays, I happened on The Nashville Food Project and immediately felt embraced by everyone at the Woodmont location. The mission of growing and cooking healthful food immediately resonated (as I love cooking and eating good food myself!), but I also appreciated that I always met interesting people, was actually being well-utilized as a volunteer, and it was reliably just a joyful place to be!”

“When plans were underway for the California kitchen, I decided to try St. Luke’s since we were all going to have to move and once again I felt like I had landed in a community that was so happily passionate and I am still thrilled to be a part of that.”  

Leslie has stepped up into a leadership role as part of a Cook Team at our headquarters kitchen in addition to a prep volunteer at St. Luke’s. From helping us with roasting veggies to making mummy hot dogs, Leslie is always uplifting everyone in our spaces and leading by her example.  

Apart from volunteering, Leslie is a talented cellist, playing with the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra (“Shameless plug,” she says, “Free concerts! See nashvillephilharmonic.org”). “Otherwise,” she says, her time is spent “playing tennis, walking my sweet dog (Olive), traveling with my also-sweet husband (Tom), reading, cooking, volunteering at Norman Binkley Elementary, and waiting for those teenagers-now-young-adults to answer my texts.”

Leslie's passion for good food impacts not only the people she's cooking for, but the people she's cooking with. Anyone who has had the privilege of chopping fruit or making salads with her over the last eight years already knows about her infectious enthusiasm! We’re grateful that after all this time, she’s still making our kitchen a more joyful place to be.

Feels Like Home: A Welcoming Week Event at Mill Ridge

By Elizabeth Langgle-Martin, Director of Community Engagement

Nestled on just three acres of Metro’s Mill Ridge regional park, the Community Farm at Mill Ridge is wrapping up its fourth growing season in this sacred place. A space for connection: connection with culture, community, land, and food cultivation, the Community Farm at Mill Ridge was a connecting point for almost 80 families of growers this year. Whether engaged in communal production as part of our Full Circle communal growing programming, or by stewarding and harvesting from an individual plot, this community continues to be a space of shared learning and liberation. 

The Community Advisory Council of the Community Farm and the staff of The Nashville Food Project co-hosted a community event inviting both farm participants and the wider community to connect over food in this shared space. This gathering took place as a part of Welcoming America’s Nationwide Welcoming Week. Through Welcoming Week, organizations and communities nationwide bring together neighbors of all backgrounds to build strong connections and affirm the importance of welcoming and inclusive places in achieving collective prosperity.

Upon entering the farm on the day of the event, hands of all ages could be found wielding a paintbrush under the guidance of local artist Ruben Torres, who imagined a landscape where participants could be invited to paint different panels in vibrant colors before the panels were assembled to create a vivid image along the farm’s fenceline. 

L-shaped tables under the toolshed sat heavy with covered dishes from the kitchens of gardeners and other event attendees. Saraí Tovar noted that she loved how the food was a perfect representation of the vibrancy of the Antioch community.   

Kids ran wild with freshly painted faces, a temporary tattoo or even muddy hands from a wildflower seed ball station where Community Farm Manager, Nora, led folks in a simple method of seed saving. 

Just out of sight, friends from Oasis Center led the transformation of one of the farm’s functional water catchment systems, turning it into yet another canvas for community art and inspiration, capturing portions of TNFP’s values in looping script next to bright depictions of pea pods and flower blooms. 

Gardeners could be found pointing out their plots to visitors, a few friends leaving with arms filled with a hastily gifted harvest. As the afternoon wrapped up, amongst the forgotten plates and crumbled napkins, exchanged phone numbers were found scribbled on compostable table cloths, reminiscent of invitations to stay in touch. 

As we continue to learn collectively about different expressions of community and belonging, we are constantly inspired and challenged by the many faces and hearts that create a place of welcome along the backdrop of a thriving community farm that often feels like home. 

Photos shared with permission and courtesy of Aidan Fitzpatrick Photography. Find Aidan on Instagram here.

Anatomy of a Meal

We often say that many hearts and hands go into this work. But what exactly do we mean by that? Follow us while we make a beef lasagna to find out!

Food Donations and Recovery

When most people cook, they decide on a recipe and then go grocery shopping for the ingredients. But for us, it’s the other way around. At any time, our walk-in refrigerator, freezer and dry storage may have thousands of servings of meat, pasta, beans, assorted veggies and more — and most often, it came from generous donors or was diverted on its way to the landfill. In fact, about 65 percent of the food we prepare in our kitchens comes from donations or recovery efforts. When it comes time to plan our menu for the week, we begin by taking stock of what we have and leaving room for any fresh ingredients that may be coming later in the week. This week, our first step is evaluating our protein supply…

Every Tuesday, a few of the fine folks from Porter Road Butcher pull up at the freezer behind our headquarters to drop off a weekly meat donation: usually some combination of ground beef, bacon, sausage and steaks. Always, they’re donating in quantities of hundreds of pounds at a time. If we’re cooking with meat, this is often where our meal begins. This time, we’re using ground beef!

Then comes produce! For something like a beef lasagna, the vegetables we need are fairly basic — mostly tomatoes for the homemade marinara sauce. Besides, all meal recipients will get a veggie side; in this case, it’s a roasted veggie medley. During the summer and fall months especially, we often receive gracious donations from local farms with a bumper crop. These particular tomatoes came from Cul2vate and Bells Bend Farms, with a few cans of recovered Costco tomatoes thrown in to thicken up the sauce a bit.

We round it out with cheese recovered from Whole Foods and lasagna noodles donated by a recent local food drive. From there, we’re ready to start cooking!

Food Preparation and Assembly

A huge branch of our volunteer program is processing donations. Usually, that means getting the bulk food that has been donated or recovered into manageable pieces for our kitchens to cook with. Whether a team of volunteers is chopping veggies or shredding chicken, there are always extra hands around here.

A few days before it was time to put together this meal, volunteers cut up huge chunks of cheese into easily meltable blocks. This ahead-of-time preparation makes it easy for our meals staff to get to work making cheese sauce! Meals Coordinator Bryan cooks off the beef and blends up the marinara sauce. At this point, everything is prepped and ready for assembly.

Food assembly is a little more detail-oriented and labor-intensive than processing, so the volunteer group that helps us put together our lasagna is one that has been around a while. Led by our friend Ann, this group of women comes in a few Thursdays a month to help us cook — a task almost always reserved for Food Project veterans. They do an amazing job!

Food Distribution and Delivery

We always prepare meals at least a day in advance. After this one is baked, it spends the night in our walk-in refrigerator and is reheated the following morning before our share team loads the vans and leaves for their meal distribution routes! Our food access partners include after-school programs, immigrant communities, homeless outreach organizations and so many others in Nashville.

We share this beef lasagna with the veggie roast and a portion of homemade applesauce with friends at Dismas House, Community Care Fellowship, FiftyForward, Project Transformation, Preston Taylor Ministries, the Martha O’Bryan Center, YWCA, Project Return and seven different after-school sites in partnership with the YMCA.

Once it gets to the sites, many more hands are involved in serving, eating and cleaning up after the meal. But that’s a story for another time…

Project Glean: A New Kind of Produce Share

Tucked on the far side of the Trevecca Nazarene University campus is a church beloved by students, staff and neighbors of the school. Behind Trevecca Community Church is Trevecca Towers, an affordable housing community of almost 600 residents positioned adjacent to Murfreesboro Pike. The closest major grocery store is over three miles away in Berry Hill, an affluent neighborhood that takes 30 minutes to reach by bus — on a good day. 

A few years ago, two church members were talking about the lack of fresh food accessibility for the church’s hilltop neighbor. They decided to do something about it, and Trevecca Community Church’s Project Glean was born.

Project Glean aims to disrupt cycles of poverty by challenging many of the aspects that contribute to the existence of food deserts, including access to reliable transportation, economic disparities and educational opportunities. As they searched for more immediate ways to help, they dreamt up something now known locally as the Neighborstand. 

“Part of TCC’s missional statements is our goal to ‘build bridges between our neighbors in holy love to transform the world in shape of God’s Kingdom,’” said Gail Pusey, a church leader and Trevecca faculty member. “One such bridge would be to offer a free, weekly, fresh-produce market to all interested Trevecca Towers residents.” 

The Neighborstand features produce grown by the seven farmers who participate in Growing Together, an urban farm stewarded by The Nashville Food Project. But the way the produce gets from the Growing Together farm to the Neighborstand involves many hands: at the beginning of the season, Trevecca Community Church bought 26 shares of Growing Together’s community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. They sold those shares back to church members, and now, church members donate some or all of the weekly produce share to the Neighborstand. 

“Many of Trevecca Community Church’s people know they are blessed, but also desire to be a blessing to others. They enjoy the interaction with TT friends who attend the church and its activities,” Pusey explains. “The beautiful residents themselves bring much to the table and enhance our congregation. TCC looks forward to increasing and promoting all aspects of Project Glean. Our motto is to ‘Love God, Love People, and Serve the World.’ Project Glean allows them to demonstrate this motto through their actions.”

Each CSA box contains 8-10 different types of vegetables and herbs. But since the seven farmers each manage their own plots, including choosing which crops to grow, one farmer’s veggie box may look completely different than another’s. Because Trevecca purchased shares from all of the farmers, the church ends up with a large variety of produce to distribute each week. The produce has been a hit, and it’s had the added bonus of bringing people together and creating connections among neighbors!

One of the priorities of The Nashville Food Project’s Growing Together farm is to share fresh, culturally appropriate produce with families experiencing food insecurity. We’re floored by the way that Project Glean used our CSA program to do just that in their own neighborhood! We’re grateful to the folks at Trevecca Community Church and Project Glean for reminding us of the deep interdependence at the center of community food security.

Stronger Together: Partner Panel & Paletas Recap

Around here, we talk often about treating hunger as just one symptom of poverty. Almost always, the individuals and families who are facing barriers to food access also experience an array of other barriers. Our vision for a more just, sustainable food system relies on the critical work of many to disrupt poverty’s diverse symptoms, which is why our partnership model is essential to the work we do.

Earlier this summer, we were proud to host a panel of partners to discuss just this. Organically, it turned into a session where we dreamt together about new, deeper ways to uplift each other, with the shared understanding that we all have a greater opportunity to thrive when we are in community with one another.

When we work interdependently and freely share the resources entrusted to us, we tap into a version of community that no longer sees people as problems to solve. Instead, we move toward a system that resources individuals and families to thrive in their own way, in their own right, with their own power. This version of community affirms the dignity of every one of its members and builds a new sense of reliance on the gifts each of us have to offer.

We left the panel with a renewed sense of hope for the future of communities that have traditionally been marginalized and under-resourced. So much vibrant work is happening right here in Nashville, and the collective work that is possible through our city-wide network of partners moves us closer to a just and sustainable world.

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Panel Participants

The Branch of Nashville

The Branch strives to build a community where everyone can thrive by nourishing, educating, and equipping our neighbors. In response to the needs present in the South Nashville community, The Branch has focused their programming efforts on a food pantry as well as an English Language Learning program for adults.

Older Adult Care and Community Engagement Director Sarai Tovar joined our panel to share her perspective about community power through The Branch’s unique lens. She’s been with the organization since 2017 when she became part of their volunteer force. She is passionate about cooking, serving others, and parenting her two young children.

Preston Taylor Ministries

Preston Taylor Ministries empowers children and youth to discover and live their God-inspired dreams, develop a love for learning, and build joy-filled friendships that glorify Christ Jesus. Their areas of impact for youth are diverse, and their after-school programming spans seven sites across Nashville and enriches students socially, spiritually and academically.

Executive Director Dwight Johnson has a passion for working with teenagers, specifically middle schoolers, and enjoys seeing youth reach their potential. He is the author of Black Boy Soar, a children’s book written to help inspire and encourage young people of color to dream big, know who they are and what they are capable of.

Nashville International Center for Empowerment

The Nashville International Center for Empowerment works to ensure that refugees and immigrants achieve their full potential now and for generations to come. Their goal is to empower folks with resources and opportunities that will aid them in their resettlement and equip them to be successful in the future. Their partnership model, commitment to advocacy, community-building and sustainable service programs make their programming come to life.

Director of Education Brandon White oversees programming designed to support immigrants and refugees integrating into American society. His background is education, and he has worked as a teacher across private, public and non-profit sectors.

Community Care Fellowship

Community Care Fellowship, affectionately known as Ken and Carol’s, has a mission to serve Christ by offering hope, love and resources to our neighbors experiencing housing insecurity. They meet guests’ immediate needs, and then work to stabilize them before helping them secure permanent housing.

Executive Director Ryan LaSuer is constantly turning towards servant leadership. This commitment has helped him over the course of 15 years serving nonprofit organizations, and a strong foundation in marketing, grassroots promotion, client engagement and stakeholder relations gave him a unique perspective during our panel.

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With Treats from Cosecha Community Development

Thank you so much to Cosecha Community Development for providing the paletas that we shared with our guests!

As part of their youth mentorship program, they have pioneered a before-school program for middle schoolers to grow their social enterprise, Cosecha Paletas. Through this program, students are able to learn entrepreneurship and kitchen skills.

Arroz con Berenjena

By Arianna Nimocks, Meals Volunteer Coordinator

“This is so Latina of us,” I laughed. 

And very TNFP, too, I thought.

My mom and I were scraping down the tilt skillet so that every little bit of our Ecuadorian Eggplant Stir-Fry (Arroz con Berenjena) could be used. 

Growing up, we never let food go to waste. My mom found creative ways to use everything — salads using leftover vegetables, beans (menestra) cooked with the bits of onion we didn’t use for the main meal, and creamy soups (cremas) using the heavy cream I bought a week ago but only used a tablespoon of. Somehow, we pretty much never threw food away. I think we all understood the time and labor it took to grow food, and we blessed our food knowing it was not necessarily a given.  

A few weeks back, the Food Project received a truckload of eggplants, and one of our Instagram posts included a question: “what would you make with all these eggplants?” My mom had replied, “Rice and pan fried eggplant, mixed in as fried rice,” alluding to an Ecuadorian dish called “Arroz con Berenjena.” Our Headquarters Kitchen Manager, Julia, put it on the menu for the following Tuesday. Coincidentally, during a phone call that very Monday, my mom told me that she would have a 5-hour layover in Nashville the next day. There was not a chance I was going to pass up this opportunity to cook the Arroz con Berenjena with her!

So, instead of having a leisurely wait at the airport that Tuesday, I picked my mom up from BNA and brought her back to the Food Project to cook the Arroz con Berenjena with me. If there’s one person who could cook a meal for 400 people during a layover, it’s my mother! I was happy as could be. My mom, who taught me how to cook, was here at one of my favorite places, cooking our home country’s food with me. 

As we added handfuls of paprika and cumin to the over 25 gallons of sauteing eggplants, garlic and onions in the tilt skillet, immediately I was back home in our kitchen. Many Ecuadorian meals start with sauteed onions and spices, finish with a sprinkle of cilantro and are served atop rice. This dish at TNFP, though about 100 times larger in quantity than the meals we’d cook at home, was no exception. I smiled as my mom chopped cup-fulls of cilantro and added them to the tilt skillet. “Mmmm,” she said. She loves cilantro.

We typically saw a recipe as a general guideline at home, but always freely swapped ingredients for the ones we had on hand. My mom used staple ingredients we had, bought the vegetables and meats we needed, and added pinches of spices and herbs until it tasted right (delicious, actually). I remember asking my mom for her recipe for Arroz con Berenjena and she laughed, “you know Latin@s, we don’t use recipes!” Because of this, TNFP felt very familiar to me from the start — in a way, we can be very “Latin” in our cooking style. We don’t always know every exact ingredient we will have available for next week’s meal given the assortment of donated food we receive, so we get to be creative in gleaning the best use from what we receive. 

Welcoming my mom to a space where I, and many others, have called home, was special. I think cooking has that unique ability to bring people together, and I’m thankful for a place that embraces that so deeply. 

When Life Hands You Lemons

Sometimes on a sweltering July day, you can only beat the heat one way: with a cold glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade, made by the hands of neighborhood kids. For generations, the lemonade stand has been a quintessential summer activity. And this year, we were honored to help our longtime partner, Preston Taylor Ministries, with theirs.

Preston Taylor enrichment camp directors Alyssa Muller and Toni Cobbins first came up with the idea to host a lemonade stand when they were brainstorming about summer programming together last spring. “We both loved the idea of giving the students ownership of something as a way to raise money, like a business,” explained Alyssa. “A lemonade stand seemed like a tangible way that we could do this.” It was a win-win: students could feel pride in getting to share their own hard work with neighbors, and proceeds would support an end-of-summer celebration for PTM students at St. Luke’s Community House and the Wilson Center.

Often, the best part of a lemonade stand is concocting your masterpiece — and that’s where the Nashville Food Project got to participate. A few days before the event, Chef Bianca and her team brought over boxes of donated lemons to Preston Taylor sites. But instead of simply donating fruit, both organizations saw the opportunity to deepen our partnership. “A big part of community is building relationships,” explained Chef Bianca. “An intentional part of the success of our meals is to connect with our partners.” 

It was in that spirit that Preston Taylor Ministries invited our meals team to teach their students about making lemonade. It was the first time most of our staff had spent with PTM students, but it’s hard not to instantly connect over squeezing lemons, scooping sugar and shaking the mixture to make the delicious drink (of course, taste-tested immediately).

The relationship between The Nashville Food Project and Preston Taylor Ministries has always been one of interdependence. Over the summer, Preston Taylor Ministries supports about 220 elementary and middle school students with day programming focused on experiential learning, academic enrichment, wellness and community. Between their sites at Wilson Center and St. Luke’s Community House, we share nearly 400 meals each week during the summer months. But we rarely get a chance to work together in real time, side-by-side. “It was fun to get outside of our own kitchens and see the enthusiasm of the kids in the Preston Taylor Ministries sites,” said Chef Bianca.

After two afternoons of prep, we were ready to open for business! Homemade signs adorned the building at PTM’s Wilson Center and excitement buzzed in the air as 2 p.m. approached and a preliminary line began forming at the tent. As customers arrived with their $3 in tow, students worked together to pour the lemonade, garnish it with a variety of fruits and herbs, and top it off with a bendy straw.

“Seeing the joy and pride in their faces during prep at each site and at the actual lemonade stand was priceless and knowing they worked hard in providing this was just the sweetness we needed to bring their lemonade to life.”

— Chef Bianca

The best part of the afternoon was the community that gathered. Friends, families, neighbors and strangers gathered on the lawn of the Wilson Center to cool off and catch up. Students squealed when they saw their friends in line, and there were frequent pauses in the lemonade assembly line for hugs. Being there to see it all reminded us how community is central to our work: it nourishes the spirit like food nourishes the body.

It’s like the old saying goes: When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Preston Taylor Ministries took it one step further to take lemonade and make a community.

Calling All Architects: Design Competition!

The way we see it, a garden is more than just a place to grow tomatoes and cucumbers — it’s also a space that supports community vitality. At the Community Farm at Mill Ridge, a growing number of gardeners come together to host educational workshops, connect with neighbors over potlucks and dream about the future of growing food in our city. And while we have plenty of rows to plant seedlings, our work to expand community in our city is sometimes limited by the physical space we can offer to garden participants. With the availability of an operational on-site pavilion, local families and gardeners will have deeper opportunities to learn, grow and connect right in their own neighborhood.

The Nashville Food Project, in partnership with Hodgson Douglas Landscape Architects, is excited to announce a design competition for a pavilion and wash-pack station at the Community Farm at Mill Ridge. Use your creativity to help us improve the Community Farm!

First-place and second-place winners will be awarded cash prizes. Submit your conceptual design by September 30 to enter.

View the competition guidelines and design specifications here.

Tips from the Gardens: Starting Seeds

By Nora McDonald, Community Farm Manager

Containers:

Choose sturdy containers with bottom holes for drainage. These can be plastic pots from your local garden center made specifically for seed-starting, or you can get creative and recycle clean plastic containers or even egg cartons you have saved — just make sure there are holes in the bottom for water to drain out. 

Potting Soil:

Choose a potting soil to start your seeds in. It should hold moisture well but be loose enough for the seeds and sprouts to access oxygen. There are many options for potting soil made specifically for seed germination, and you can consult your local garden center for a recommendation. 

Planting:

Plant your seeds according to the recommendations provided on the seed packet. Most seeds only need to be planted to a depth equal to the width of the seed itself. Planting too deep will cause the seeds to struggle. Once you have covered the seed with soil, gently press or pat the soil to ensure good seed-to-soil contact. This helps the seeds absorb moisture.

Water and Warmth:

Provide even moisture and warmth until seeds emerge. The soil should be kept moist, but not water-logged as too much moisture can cause seeds to rot. You can help retain moisture by covering your starting containers with a plastic dome or by using cling wrap. Remove these covers when sprouts emerge and place them in a sunny location such as a south-facing window. 

Potting Up:

Especially if you have started your seeds in very small containers, you’ll want to pot them up into larger containers shortly after they have germinated and the first true leaves have appeared. A growing plant will outgrow a small container or germination tray quickly, and potting up prevents the plant’s roots from becoming overly restricted and keeps the plant healthy. 

1. Fill your larger containers with fresh soil, preferably one with added nutrients to help feed the growing plants. 

2. Using a clean wooden stick or small fork, gently scoop under and lift the tiny transplant out of its original container. Never grab a plant by its stem and pull it out of the soil. Lifting from underneath keeps roots intact and reduces stress on the plant. 

3. Gently tuck the plant's roots and some of its stem into the new potting soil and press it into place. Some plants such as tomatoes and peppers like their stems buried a bit deeper, and some plants don’t like it at all, so a bit more research on your type of plant may be required. 

Depending on how quickly your plants grow, you may need to pot them up into even bigger containers before it’s time to plant them outside in the garden. This can feel like a lot of work but it is well worth the effort to ensure healthy, vigorous plants. If you plan to keep your plants in containers for a patio garden, you will definitely want to pot them up into large enough containers for the plants to reach their full size and provide a good yield.

Happy Growing!

In an effort to cultivate community and alleviate hunger in our city, The Nashville Food Project brings people together to grow, cook and share nourishing food. Learn more about our programs and how you can get involved.

Partner Spotlight: The Ark

The Nashville Food Project staff and our new friend, Butch

By Lilah Abrams, AmeriCorps Member

Butch usually starts lunch with a joke — an evident ritual that manages to draw a number of giggles from individuals throughout the room. Since 2001, Butch, alongside his wife Marilyn, Melanie Smiley, and Anne Carty, has guided the Senior Lunch program at The Ark, creating a regular space to laugh, share, connect, learn and eat.  

These weekly lunches seem to exemplify the core of the Ark’s work in their community: creating a web of care that is fundamentally personal. 

While the organization was officially founded in 2001, their meals programming has roots reaching back to 1995 – led by two volunteers who remain active Meals on Wheels delivery drivers. Dedicated to the goal of “addressing severe gaps in social services and community resources for seniors in South Cheatham County,” The Ark’s programming takes many different forms: hosting weekly a “Senior Lunch” out of Pegram United Methodist Church  providing utility assistance to seniors throughout the community, offering a robust food pantry, and subsidizing “back-to-school” shopping through their thrift store, Noah’s Ark, among other modes of community involvement. 

However, their work of community building – through humor, generosity and hospitality – seems as foundational as much of their programming. The exuberance and warmth of The Ark’s organizing, around and with their meals, embodies much of what The Nashville Food Project holds as a value – “bringing people together” and “cultivating community through food.” In experiencing this, I was reminded of a sentiment I’ve heard repeated here at the Food Project, pulled from words first spoken by Tallu, that imagines a world in which people “have enough to eat and people to eat with.” Experiencing the Senior Lunch at The Ark and their thoughtful, yet incredibly natural ways of creating spaces to explore ‘being together, this sentiment felt brought to life. 

This mother-daughter pair helps with Meals on Wheels deliveries and makes regular appearances at Wednesday Senior Lunch.

Sharing these values and goals, The Nashville Food Project has been partnering with The Ark since 2018, serving about 100 total meals each week for both the Meals on Wheels program and weekly Senior Lunches, cooked in our kitchens. Like the work we seek to do in our spaces, Melanie Smiley, a former director of meals for the local school district, often adds and alters based on what folks have been asking for (usually including some dessert options and homemade drinks gathered from donation), before serving inside the church’s community space or distributing among volunteer drivers. 

It is over these cake slices, glasses of lemonade, and plates of homemade beef stroganoff that The Ark draws people in to gather – forging new connections and nurturing years-long friendships…eating and having people to eat with.

You can learn more about The Ark’s work to create community in Cheatham County on their website.

Sweet Peas 2022: Setting More Places at the Table

This summer, you might see our trucks around town on routes to Conexión Américas, Project Transformation, Preston Taylor Ministries or Napier Kitchen Table. You may also catch us on our way to some elementary schools, despite the summer break — A Z Kelley in Antioch, or Hull Jackson in Buena Vista Heights. For all of these daily site visits, the trucks will be loaded up with fresh fruits, scratch-made meals chock-full of veggies and proteins, and cold milk for about 600 kids in Nashville. This is the work of our Sweet Peas: Summer Eats for Kids program, sponsored by Jackson® for the third consecutive year!

Every school year, Metro Nashville Public Schools serves 8.4 million lunches and 4 million breakfasts. But during the summer months, without these daily meals, many youth are at risk of hunger. Despite robust government programs in place to increase food access, Business Insider reported in 2019 that only 16% of children who depend on USDA-funded summer meals are actually able to access them.

That’s why, for the fourth year in a row, we have partnered with diverse summer programming sites across the city to ensure that children still receive the meals they depend on during the summer. Thanks to a long-standing partnership with Jackson®, we anticipate sharing 10,000 nutritious meals at 15 different sites this June and July. This is in addition to the ongoing local partnerships the Food Project maintains year-round.

Since the program’s genesis in 2019, we have shared over 63,000 meals with kids during the summer months. But the work goes beyond that. School is a major social touchpoint for most children, and summer can be a challenging and lonely time for some. A good meal is often an entry-point for our partners to develop life-changing relationships with the kids who come through their doors: it fills a need, starts a conversation and creates a culture of trust and interdependence. As our partner Nations Ministry said last year,

“Because of the food The Nashville Food Project serves, we have been able to continue building trust with our students which has in turn allowed them to feel safer at our program and in our staff’s care.”

— Sweet Peas Partner

So of course, we hope that Sweet Peas cultivates a new crop of broccoli enthusiasts, strawberry lovers and adventurous eaters. But our greatest hope is that it cultivates deep community. We are so grateful for and impressed by the work our partners do to give kids safe and engaging places to connect when school is out. It’s an honor to be involved in this interconnected community by setting as many places as possible at an overflowing table.

We hope you’ll follow along with us on social media as we share updates from Sweet Peas this summer!

Click here to learn more about the 2022 SFSP meal sites sponsored by The Nashville Food Project.

Reflections on Simmer: What We Wish Were True

““Seated around the table, give me real people who are ready to have real conversations and set aside all the pomp and circumstance of what is false, hollow, hateful, worldly, or avaricious. At the table, talk with me about your regrets, your peculiarities, your memories of your ancestors even if painful, the magic you have encountered, your great love, your fear, your shame, or your hope for the world.””

— Tallu Schuyler Quinn

Photo by Elle Jackson Photography

Our first Simmer since 2019 was a special one, honoring our late founder, Tallu Schuyler Quinn and celebrating the release of her beautiful memoir, What We Wish Were True: Reflections on Nurturing Life and Facing Death. Surrounded by the tall, stained-glass windows at Riverside Revival, we crowded around tables to share memories, swap anecdotes and tell our origin stories of the person who made The Nashville Food Project what it is today. We were grateful to host over 125 guests for this special night — our largest Simmer ever — and proud to tell you that funds raised from this night go directly back to our work.

To design the menu, we recruited the brilliant minds of our friends Ann Fundis and Anne Sale, as well as Chef Tandy Wilson of City House Nashville and Chef Margot McCormack of Margot Cafe & Bar. They worked with our very own Chef Bianca Morton to piece together morsels of Tallu’s life and create courses that honored her, a deeply meaningful process. As Chef Margot said, “the dinner gave me some closure on Tallu’s death: saying goodbye, but also feeling my heart open to so much.” 

The careful process of choosing each ingredient began by emphasizing the foods that Tallu loved: homemade bread, pickled vegetables, butternut squash, Mexican flan. Then, the chefs worked together to bring their ideas, experience and expertise to the table. “Once the menu was narrowed down, we began collaborating on each other’s strengths and carving out who led what part of the menu,” explains Chef Bianca.

“ “Each of us offered our own interpretations that would elevate the dishes and honor our love of Tallu.””

— Chef Bianca Morton

In true Tallu form, the night began with bread, generously donated from Dozen Bakery. In her book, she talks about the Latin and French origins of the word “accompany:” to come with bread, or to be a bread-friend. As we welcomed one another from near and far, some meeting for the first time and others embracing for the thousandth, we shared charred French baguettes topped with savory smoked fish mousse and sweet ricotta, figs and honey. We were grateful for the chance to forge so many bread-friendships!

As dinner was served, the stories spilled over. Mixed greens in little silver mixing bowls recalled the big salads Tallu would prepare from farm-fresh ingredients and eat at work for lunch. Roasted chicken in a butternut squash red sauce paid tribute to an organic farmer who donated hundreds of pounds of squash that he couldn’t sell because his cows had taken little nibbles of the ends of them — Tallu recruited a small team to peel, cube and roast the squash and then puree it into a creamy, rich sauce to bake into lasagna and pour over pasta. And dessert, a beautiful panna cotta with caramel flan sauce, lemon curd, crumble and blood orange, conjured memories of her sweet voice singing a song with her father as guests at the Nourish Patrons’ Party enjoyed the very same dish several years back. 

Over dinner, beloved friends shared the stage to read passages from What We Wish Were True. Each reading was a story of its own but prompted countless others, all describing poignant moments of laughter, hardship and hope. 

We listened to Margo Cloniger revisit The Nashville Food Project’s humble beginnings under its old moniker, laughing as she recalled a bulk Mobile Loaves and Fishes t-shirt order that came in right before the organization officially changed its name. We were reminded of Tallu’s core belief that human value transcends what they do for work when Nate Paulk shared how she counseled him through a really difficult phase in his professional life. And we heard from Sally Rausch about the vulnerable process of helping Tallu write the book when her body began failing her, which could not have happened without the bonds of deep trust that Tallu shared with so many. With each story, the corners of the room folded in a little more to pull us closer together.

As the night wrapped up, C.J. Sentell, CEO of The Nashville Food Project, shared a final thought from the book:

“For years I was wrestling with God and with myself about my purpose and place and role, and here it was before me all the while—the mission we keep folding ourselves into, which I’ve come to understand as the perfect recipe: to grow, to cook, and most important, to share.”

An ever-growing community has been galvanized by Tallu’s radical vision of food security. The tables we continue to gather around invite us into this mission again and again. And the more meals we grow, cook and share, the nearer we draw to one another and to the world around us. We are so grateful to have you with us on this journey!

““The Nashville Food Project is not a church, but it is a community that saves people. It saved me.””

— Tallu Schuyler Quinn

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Thank You

A special thanks to all of our sponsors and donors for making this Simmer event possible: 

• Boedecker Foundation

• Les Dames D’Escoffier Nashville

• Dozen Bakery

• Margot Cafe & Bar

• City House and Chef Rebekah Turshen

• 100% Italiano

• Springer Mountain Farms

• HydroHouse Farms

• Greener Roots Farm

• Sweeter Days Farm

This life-giving work can exist because of your generosity, in all its many forms. To learn more about ways to get involved and support, visit thenashvillefoodproject.org.

If you haven’t yet, purchase your copy of What We Wish Were True. A portion of the proceeds from each book sold at the link above supports our work.

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Blood Orange Vinaigrette

Crafted by Josh Rickerman

Serves: 6

⅔ c olive oil

⅓ c fresh-squeezed blood orange juice

Zest of 2 blood oranges

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp herb oil

1 tsp Dijon mustard

2 tsp honey (sub. sugar or agave nectar)

Salt and pepper to taste

Meet the 2022 Growing Together Farmers

By Tallahassee May, Director of Growing Together

The Growing Together community farm is gearing up for a busy season ahead! The farmers have expertly nurtured the soil, raised the transplants, sown the seed, and coaxed their crops through the roller coaster spring weather. Next week we begin our Veggie Box Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program as well as start our produce share deliveries to community partners new and returning. To say the Growing Together farmers are ready is an understatement, as they have worked tirelessly to have our now bountiful field of produce ready for our customers.

As the market-farming program of The Nashville Food Project, the work of growing food and increasing food access is a primary goal. The participating farmers came to this country as either refugees or recent immigrants and face significant barriers due to language, literacy, and transportation. With land access, skills training, market connections, and a space free from the pressure of cultural assimilation, the Growing Together farmers significantly increase food security through their contribution to our local food system. 

But the Growing Together farm, while a busy and productive place, is also about cultivating community and connection through meaningful work.  It is a place for the farmers to experience belonging and purpose, and each of them brings unique skills and incredible heart to their work every day.

View fullsize

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 Long-time community farm participants Chandra and Tonka Poudel, Lal Subba, and Nar and Tek Guragai have been with the Growing Together program since the beginning and form the cornerstones of our production. Because of their excellent skills and commitment, we are able to hold more produce sharing opportunities than ever before, ensuring as many local, organically grown vegetables as possible are feeding our communities. As elders in their communities, they offer much wisdom, experience, humor and insight. These farmers carry with them traditional agricultural and cultural knowledge, and the time we spend together working, learning, laughing, problem-solving, and sharing food together in the garden helps to keep this knowledge alive for younger generations.

The sister team of Sumitra and Pabitra Guragai are also a large part of the farm. Having worked alongside their parents for years, they are amazing growers themselves and pursue new and diverse crops, such as cut flowers and medicinal herbs, with the energy of true entrepreneurs. Sumitra and Pabitra are the youngest farmers and also juggle full time work commitments, GED courses and citizenship classes. Although they are busy, their time on the farm is marked by their shared laughter and song as it drifts over our acreage.

The newest farmer is La Sa Roi, who arrived in the United States 3 years ago from Myanmar. She has taken to full-time farming with great joy and passion, and has now expanded into a 3,500 square foot growing area. Roi and her daughter-in-law, interpreter Lulu Nkum, help organize and distribute 175 pounds of produce a week to their Burmese community members who lack access to fresh, culturally relevant produce. Roi loves to grow all vegetables, but mostly water spinach, long beans, and heirloom hot chili peppers—coveted crops by her community.

We are excited to have our first Growing Together community farm apprentice, Lu Ja! Our program aims to continue to offer this farm opportunity to new arrivals in the Burmese and Bhutanese communities. However, the program does require a very large commitment and has a steep learning curve. The apprenticeship allows someone who is interested in farming to work with other Growing Together farmers and participate in training, but without the full-time responsibilities. Instead of growing vegetables to sell, they learn alongside experienced farmers and provide supplemental support. The Nashville Food Project is gratefully paying the apprentice an hourly wage for their time for the season with the goal that next year, they will participate in the program as a full time farmer.

These Growing Together farmers love what they do everyday: growing food for our community. The Nashville Food Project provides access to support that otherwise would not be available to them. But, the farmers bring so much of themselves every day to the work — dedication, joy, gratitude, knowledge, perspective, and humor — that they are truly the heart of the program.

Stay connected with the Growing Together farmers on our website or via Instagram, @growingtogethernashville. You can also enjoy their produce at our favorite local restaurants, City House and TKO!

Why Pie?

This is a story I meant to share with my friend, Tallu, and a reminder that our time is short. I keep this Mary Oliver quote at the front of my journal, “Pay attention.  Be astonished.  Tell about it.”  Tallu, I am telling about it. 

Cheri holding one of the 150 pies she led TNFP in crafting for a 2021 bake sale.

Once, many years ago, I made a French apple pie for an older couple in my neighborhood.  I wasn’t really a pie maker then and I can’t even say if it was a scratch-made crust.  When I handed the pie to Marlene, she remarked, “Why, honey, pie-making is a lost art.”  This news startled me and marked the moment that became both an exploration of my past and my future special relationship with pie. 

My grandparents, Armando and Franny, lived in a rural, former mining town in Fraser, Iowa on a large patch of land flanked by fruit and vegetable gardens, an apple orchard, a smattering of cornfields, and a sweet, circular pasture complete with exactly one cow. At the turn of the 20th century, Fraser was comprised mostly of Irish and Italian immigrants with a large percentage of them being my extended family. My grandparents’ home was a hub of the village and their door was always open to all those relatives, friends, and neighbors.  I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t a freshly-baked pie in the center of the large yellow table in the farmhouse kitchen.  It was understood that all were welcome to grab a plate from the cupboard, cut a sliver or a slice, pour a simple cup of coffee and join the others sitting outside on the worn, wide metal chairs under the giant cottonwood trees. 

Sadly, I did not learn how to make pie from Grandma Franny.  I was very young when she became ill, but adult reflection on my childhood memories taught me the power of pie.  You see, in her own way, Grandma employed the “grow, cook, share” model.  All the pies were made with garden-grown and foraged fruit and nothing was wasted. I have happy memories of trekking around with a little pail, battling mosquitoes and thorns, to collect perfectly-ripe red raspberries.  The love and human touch is obvious in a well-crafted pie.  It’s a gift for both the maker and the receiver.  The very nature of pie is that it is generous and meant to be shared. Grandma created a gathering space and community around those pies.  Her pies were an invitation to slow down, to linger, to fill your belly or your soul or both.  Maybe those visitors came for a bit of fun, a laugh, some gossip or maybe they came because they were hungry, lonely, grieving.  As a child, I only knew the pies were delicious but through my adult lens, I now see that sharing pie was Grandma’s gentle way of caring for the people in her patch of the world.

I have had wonderful pie experiences with TNFP, both as a giver, receiver (thank you, Christa!), and even as an occasional teacher.  The 150 picnic basket apple pies, made with Apple Joe’s donated apples, were the perfect marriage of my passion for pie-making joined with my need to be of service. I have internalized Grandma’s pie lessons and I keep her good work and memory alive through every pie I make.

By sheer coincidence on the day of my birthday in the summer of 2021, I had what would be my last conversation with Tallu.  I recall how she completely lit up when I mentioned that I was making a pie and I lit up in the telling.  She wanted to know every detail.  What a gift.

Celebrating the Life of our Founder Tallu Schuyler Quinn

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we have learned about the passing of our beloved founder, Tallu Schuyler Quinn.

A Nashville native, Tallu founded The Nashville Food Project in 2011 at the age of 31. With fierce hope and an expansive vision, she shepherded the organization for a decade through an incredible evolution. What began from a modest church kitchen and a handful of volunteers delivering sandwiches to homeless camps morphed into multi-pronged, interrelated initiatives for food justice. Under Tallu’s guidance, hundreds of thousands of scratch-made, nourishing meals have been shared across the city. A robust food waste recovery program has diverted hundreds of thousands of pounds of food away from landfills to be stewarded instead for highest best use. And an agriculture program for farmers and community gardens sprang up in green spaces across the city empowering Nashvillians from a myriad of backgrounds to grow for themselves and their communities. Then in July 2020, Tallu was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. She died from the disease on February 17, 2022. Tallu was 42.

“As a very young woman, Ms. Quinn saw a desperate need in her city,” Margaret Renkl wrote in The New York Times in 2021. “Step by step, enlisting thousands of others in a shared mission, she found a vast array of ways to meet it.”

Indeed, community beats at the heart of the mission Tallu helmed at The Nashville Food Project – “bringing people together to grow, cook and share nourishing food with the goals of cultivating community and alleviating hunger in our city.” Her vision for community food security in which everyone in Nashville has access to the food they want and need, is both radical and achievable. But she’s also been known to say that the “bringing people together” aim of the mission is its most radical claim. She believed good food is more than a basic human need, it is a human right, and it can foster more than good health – it imbues a sense of belonging and purpose. She demonstrated in her life and work that community built through food can highlight our interdependence with one another and the Earth while piercing through the loneliness, isolation and feelings of scarcity so often associated with poverty.  

Along with a boundless energy and open, accepting love for humanity, Tallu also embodied the values of the Food Project: hospitality, stewardship, justice, interdependence, learning and transformation. The latter she often spoke about with a “fiercest hope” that people and situations can change. An inspiring teacher, speaker, writer and leader, she could fire up a crowd to action, weed a raised bed or clean out a walk-in cooler with equal intensity. She championed and shared the joy, hope and love in difficult food justice work. But even as an uplifting visionary to all those around her, she wasn’t afraid to deliver a realistic picture too, ever empathetic and aiming to untangle the systemic problems that lead to the need for food justice work in the first place.  

For example, in an August 2019 newsletter for the Food Project she does not sugar coat the struggle and “peril in America for those who are impoverished, non-white or born elsewhere,” she wrote also adding women, children and seniors to the list of most vulnerable. 

But rather than fall paralyzed at a never-ending news cycle of “fires ablaze, a poisoned planet groaning beneath the weight of overpopulation, drought, displacement and centuries-old conflict and war,” she urged that “it's radical to stay active and believing that we as individuals or small communities can make a dent of a difference.” 

“I recently heard someone speak about the difference between hope and optimism,” she continued. “Optimism is a feeling, a mood. But hope is a decision, a choice. Hope is something to practice, and to be enacted. And when the invitation comes to attend to the problem before us, we can lean on what we have learned from our practice.”

Tallu believed the work of the Food Project embodied that practice – local solutions to overwhelming global issues. “When you come here I believe you will find that the tangible work of chopping vegetables and digging in the dirt to the benefit of our wider community will ease your mind, connect you to others, engage your creativity, and offer a chance to give yourself again to that most important spiritual practice – hope.”

Tallu lives on in the organization she founded, but also in her many eloquent writings. In another letter she reflected on TNFP’s approach recalling a Wendell Berry quote: “if it can’t be weighed, measured, or counted it doesn’t exist.” And while she recognized this as a necessary part of funding the work – the counting of meals, volunteers, numbers of garden plots and the weighing of produce, she challenged us to think beyond a charity mindset and the emergency food system. 

“But how do we measure the other stuff? How do we talk about the connections between us as what matters most? Starting your day with a purpose. What it feels like to be a member of a community who loves you. The mindful presence required when communicating with someone who speaks a language different from your own fluent tongue. The blessings before you when a meal begins. The excitement that rises up in you when you eat delicious food. The contentment you feel when well nourished.”

She believed in community work and the importance of the harder-to-measure impacts – the meals shared together that can make our city and world a better place. 

After her cancer diagnosis, Tallu continued writing on her CaringBridge website even as her vision began to fail. While she continued to touch on the issues of her life’s work, she also delved even deeper into matters of love, family, grief, the body, death. She eloquently and honestly shared her thoughts in stories that are at once humorous and heartbreaking, clinging to life while also showing us how to let go. She taught those around her with her presence to the very end. At the one-year anniversary of her diagnosis, for example, she wrote a reflection that included this ending: “I understand that whatever pain our family is facing is only the flipped side of what holds us together in love.”

Tallu's extraordinary writing during this difficult time of her life led to her writing a book. Her memoir, “What We Wish Were True: Reflections on Nurturing Life and Facing Death,” will be published in April on Convergent Books, a division of Penguin Random House. “Life,” she wrote, “will dash and devastate, all while handing you a damn dream come true.” Of her writing, Renkl of The New York Times says this: 

“She shares unvarnished accounts of the indignities of cancer, and cancer treatment, but invariably her essays are also deeply felt and beautifully rendered meditations on the gifts — yes, the gifts — of struggle. Of suffering. Of temporality itself. A spirit of generosity and flashes of wit shine through even her saddest words.

“Taken together, these essays of living a spiritually and emotionally rich life in a failing body are nothing less than a master class in how to be fully human. In recalling the events of her own life, and in plumbing those memories for meaning, Ms. Quinn prods readers to find meaning in their own struggles, to recall the too often overlooked beauty in their own lives.”

Tallu grew up in an artistic Nashville family with a songwriting father, Thom Schuyler, and artist mother, Sarah whose painting of Tallu’s brain inspired the cover of her book. Tallu attended Harpeth Hall School and later earned a B.F.A in Papermaking and Bookbinding from the Appalachian Center for Craft in Smithville, Tennessee. She loved working with her hands, its slow, focused meditative nature intersects with her quest for the divine. She received a Master’s of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University in New York, where she focused her studies on art, ritual and liberation theology. After seminary, Tallu moved to Nicaragua, where she lived and worked with poor farmers on food security projects using methods of agriculture that build communities and protect the land. But before seminary, her job in an urban grocery store in Boston opened her eyes to food injustices and food waste. Both profound experiences laid the groundwork for her vocation. After returning to Nashville, she helped run the local arm of Austin-based Mobile Loaves & Fishes. The Nashville Food Project grew out of those experiences.

Tallu is survived by her husband Robbie, and their children Lulah and Thomas Quinn. She is also survived by her parents Thom and Sarah Schuyler and brothers Roy and Luke Schuyler. She loved to cook for her family and loved ones. She loved creating, studying papermaking and bookbinding. And she loved music, specifically the Indigo Girls who she had seen live, remarkably, more than 40 times. Despite working in an incredibly difficult field, she made the time and space for these joys even as she called on us to consider our own joys and power to fight in many ways against despair. 

“To be restored to wholeness, to stay hopeful that healing — whatever that means to us — is possible,” Tallu wrote. “I believe in these things. I believe in it for me, for you, and for all of humanity. And for this earth we have misused and abused…I think about how my purpose may be the same in death as it continues to be in life — surrendering to the hope that our weaknesses can be made strong, that what is broken can be made whole.” 

At the request of the family, gifts can be made in memory of Tallu to support The Nashville Food Project now and in the future. Donations will support a Legacy Fund to maintain the Food Project's operations and grow Tallu's vision for community food security in Nashville.

The family will gather for a private, natural burial at Larkspur Conservation on Sunday. A public memorial service is planned for 11:00am on Tuesday, February 22 at Woodmont Christian Church.

Partner Spotlight: Nashville International Center for Empowerment (NICE)

By: Lilah Adams, Americorps Member- Community Engagement Coordinator

Prior to this August, the Nashville International Center for Empowerment (NICE) helped in the resettlement and community-building processes for about 80 individuals per year. In the past four months, however, they’ve worked to welcome more than 180 new Nashville arrivals from Afghanistan–and they don’t expect to slow down for a few more months. 

While the expansion has pushed the organization far past its historical limits, they fit within a network of organizations adjusting to new needs. The city expects to welcome about 500 Afghans by the end of the year–just a sliver of the group of more than 50,000 forced into the resettlement process around the U.S. in 2021. 

The widespread evacuation of Afghanistan is a response to the Taliban takeover in the country late last year, resulting in the quick uprooting of thousands of Afghanistan residents. The speed and mechanisms of the departure pose new challenges, with the majority of Afghan nationals assigned a “humanitarian parole” designation, separate from the traditional “refugee” status typical to individuals working with resettlement agencies. Those working with NICE emphasize that this designation shifts traditional processes for benefit eligibility and the timeline of governmental support for these new arrivals. 

The situation remains continuously evolving and is exacerbated by the challenges intrinsic to the continued spread of COVID-19 throughout the world, which has required incredible flexibility and adaptiveness from all involved. 

NICE has responded to new needs by making a series of organizational adjustments, simultaneously teaching and learning as they navigate new organizational terrain. 

Chris Linthicum, director of resettlement services, emphasizes that partnerships have become essential to their coordination efforts, sharing resources with other resettlement agencies in the city, such as Catholic Charities. 

As such, part of this new organizing has taken the form of an expanded partnership between NICE and The Nashville Food Project, with TNFP supporting NICE’s efforts through 8 weeks of produce and dry goods/pantry-staples meal support, aiming to provide initial access to both nutritious and culturally-connective foods.

Snapshots of dry goods shares and fresh produce bags heading to Afghan families!

Volunteers and employees at NICE have coordinated delivery of this food support to help ease the often-disruptive transition. The partnership has extended beyond the weekly produce distribution as well, supporting the organization’s vaccination event efforts with produce distribution in coordination. 

Founded by Dr. Gatluak in 2005 to help build community for refugees from Sudan in Nashville, NICE recognizes that “the challenges faced by the NICE target population are often exacerbated by ‘mainstream’ support systems that often do not account for the steep access problems facing non-native English speakers, the majority of whom are unfamiliar with American culture.”

CEO and founder, Dr. Gatluak (left), alongside NICE logo and messaging (right)

Since then, NICE’s programming has developed into four main categories of support–education (from early childhood through high school), resettlement (initial contacts and coordinating upon arrival in the U.S.), employment (largely through a match grant program), health (intensive case management services), and ultimately assistance with immigration navigation. 

In emphasizing shared experiences as a new arrival in the United States himself, Dr. Gatluck projects the shared value of hospitality–celebrating investment in relationships and people’s ability to both serve as guest and host–a dynamic evidenced in NICE’s commitment to empowerment as central in resettlement. 

As NICE continues to welcome new Nashvillians, the organization is also urging fellow individuals in the community to consider how to support the resettlement process, specifically as they seek temporary and long-term housing solutions for our new neighbors. To learn more about NICE’s essential work and how to offer your support, check out their website.

Growing Together: Highlights of 2021

by Tallahassee May, Director of Growing Together

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in November, the Growing Together farmers hosted a potluck to celebrate the conclusion of the season. Colorful bowls and trays of vegetable curries, Nepali dumplings called momos, roti, and rice pilau, filled the tables and welcomed guests to the garden. 

As a part of The Nashville Food Project’s garden program, Growing Together supports those who came here as refugees and immigrants from Bhutan and Myanmar in their desire to farm. A big part of this work is the facilitation of access to land, resources, training, and markets that otherwise would not be available because of language and cultural barriers. Now in its seventh year, the Growing Together garden is a vibrant community space that provides a safe and beautiful sanctuary for its participants as well as their families and friends. It is always a very special occasion to open the garden to visitors and to commemorate the harvest together.

The Growing Together program is small, but its impact is deep. This year, there were six families farming our one acre of land. More than 20,000 pounds of vegetables were harvested from this green and compact corner of our city. More than 5,000 pounds of that were purchased by The Nashville Food Project from the farmers and then shared with partners and community members who helped distribute to those who otherwise lack access to fresh produce. We are also grateful for the customers who participated in our community supported agriculture (CSA) program. The Growing Together CSA fed 65 households, supplying weekly boxes of familiar Tennessee vegetables as well as the farmers’ cultural foods such as bitter gourd, long beans, and heirloom Nepali mustard.

Here are just a few of our favorite moments from the year:  

• Welcoming volunteers back to the garden! Volunteers play such an important role in our infrastructure and maintenance at the garden site, and it was wonderful to work together again tackling projects.

• Harvesting shiitake mushrooms!  Thanks to a seed money grant from Slow Food Middle Tennessee, we were able to purchase logs and start our shiitake mushroom enterprise this year. Our hope is to have enough in the coming years to offer them in our Veggie Boxes to our CSA customers.  This year was a fun learning adventure, and we picked enough to make some delicious shiitake mushroom salt to share with our guests at the year-end potluck.

• New Partnerships!  This year we worked closely with other organizations and community members who helped facilitate the distribution of fresh produce bags.  We have so much admiration for the work of Nashville Immigrant Center for Empowerment (NICE), Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), Trap Gardens,  Highlands Apartments, and organizers from the Burmese Community, and we appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with them in sharing organically grown and culturally appropriate vegetables to those in need.

• A new onsite walk-in cooler!  This was a game-changer for our program, making our vegetable harvesting much more efficient and improving the quality of our produce.

• Donating vegetables to the Burmese community for their fundraiser. The crisis in Myanmar left many civilians in that country powerless and desperate for resources. The local Burmese community banded together to raise funds for family members there by using Growing Together vegetables to make and sell kimchi.

• This Nashville Scene cover story on our work along with the the work of The Nashville Food Project!

  As Farmer Nar says: “The garden is a memory of home.  I am glad I can work and make money here, but most important to me is how it makes me feel.  I can be true to who I am when I am in the garden.”

Thank you to everyone who supported Growing Together this year!

Joining Forces for Free Community Health Days

Lilah and Annie get ready to share some bok choy, collards and other produce.

by Elizabeth Langgle-Martin, Community Engagement Manager

The Nashville Food Project’s work has long been that of sharing high-quality, fresh food alongside powerful and essential programming in our city to enhance the poverty-interrupting work of nonprofit partners, community organizers, grassroots movements, and others. 

In late 2021, thanks to generous funding from Welcoming America’s Resilient Rapid Response Fund, the TNFP team had the opportunity to lean into a new form of community health and care. We leveraged our resources and community connections to increase opportunities for New American communities to access COVID-19 vaccines and health information with intentional language support alongside access to fresh, local produce distribution and other essential services.

Event participants — shared with permission.

Inspired by our long time partnership with Christ Lutheran Church (the site of our Growing Together farm) and its sister congregations, alongside the vibrant community work of Elmahaba Center, we held three community health and COVID-19 vaccine events in South Nashville with deep support from a network of language workers and a number of other service providers. Metro Health’s COVID Vaccine Strike Teams, under the leadership of Tameika Evans and Ebony Harris, provided combinations of testing and vaccine services. Throughout the course of planning and feedback from the represented communities, offerings grew to include diaper support through Nashville Diaper Connection, paper goods through Community Resource Center, children’s items through Elmahaba, and resource and health information through Tennessee Justice Center, Siloam Health’s Community Health Workers, NICE’s Trusted Messengers and so many more.

At the close of our early December event, our team celebrated the 96 vaccines administered throughout these three events. We also shared pounds and pounds of locally grown produce such as thick bundles of collard greens, carrots with leafy tops, a rainbow of peppers, potatoes and beets as well as other herbs and vegetables alongside flats of eggs. Guests to these events represented more than six language groups, with folks sharing greetings and information in Arabic, Swahili, Burmese, Nepali, Spanish, and English. Our favorite moments included neighbors sharing the varied uses of different produce heaped on folding tables and comparing preparation ideas or snagging extra eggs for a neighbor and herbs for their aunt. We also loved the cheers when someone received their first vaccine dose and watching small children race their matchbox cars from Elmahaba Center across the gymnasium floor.

We are excited to continue this work in the new year through an invitation to collaborate with Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), Conexion Americas, NICE, PENCIL, Hispanic Family Foundation, Metro Health and others for another rendition at the TIRRC headquarters on Jan. 8! Make sure to follow along with our partners in this vital and timely work!

Partners with the Tennessee Justice Center were on hand to help with questions about SNAP and TennCare.

Partners with NICE and Siloam Health.

Two of our co-hosts at Christ Lutheran Church, Pastor Esther Godfrey and President of Church Council Mark Miller.