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!

What it Means to Nourish Community

Nourishment, after all, is about so much more than feeding and eating. To nourish another centers on the emotional tie—the care, regard, and concern—you have for another. It is about maintaining a relationship by prioritizing and cherishing another, not imposing what you think you know, but rather about listening. And it is this relationship that informs what makes another person or a community healthy and strong.

Sowing Seeds of Justice

It is past time to sow seeds that yield justice and a more equitable future. The profound impact of racism on life and death demands a full response from every single part of American society. At The Nashville Food Project we know we do not have all the answers, but we believe we can be part of the solution. We have learned and continue to learn that anti-racism work cannot be treated as side work, but it is the work of community food justice.

Banana Bread for the Pandemic: Remembering a Loved One Lost to Coronavirus

In this time of unbelievable confusion and pain, we cling to the things that bring us comfort, and the most time tested ways of feeling better is to cook and eat a good meal, to bake a loaf of bread. We are reminded of the meals we have shared with the people we love. We ease the sting of separation with delicious memories of dinner parties past. We honor those we have lost by cooking something that they have loved.

The Nashville Food Project Care Package: Part 2

We collected our inspirations, recommendations, motivations—all salve for the loneliness and fears this virus and social distancing can produce. These recommendations aren’t necessarily heavy or directly related to the pandemic or our work. Rather it's a collection intended to nourish and accompany our community as we all stay home together.

An Update from the Growing Together Farmers: "Believing in Tomorrow"

So many doors, businesses, and communities are closed and we are all feeling the impact and the collective suffering. And yet. We at the Nashville Food Project and within the Growing Together community have no choice but to use this as an opportunity to imagine, envision, and create new doors, new opportunities, and new pathways forward. We will continue on with our vision of community food security, where everyone has access to the food they want and need.

Learning New Ways to Share

We talk a lot about the sharing at The Nashville Food Project. Many times that looks like fresh produce or local proteins generously shared by farmers or grocers that our team transforms into nourishing meals to be shared with our community. Other times sharing is the donated labor of our beloved volunteers who give us their time and talents to help us prep ingredients and cook meals. But in a recent turn of events in these unprecedented times, sharing also has involved wheels.

Finding Hope in the Garden

“Working in gardens is hopeful work for me. I can only work with what’s available to me today. There is no way to know what the season will be like. Certainly some things will flourish and some will struggle. So, we plant the seeds…We rejoice in our relationship to the earth, to our commitment to this plot of ground and to the delicate but resilient plants growing in it.”

The Nashville Food Project Care Package for Uncertain Times (Part 1)

We collected our inspirations, recommendations, motivations—all salve for the loneliness and fears this virus and social distancing can produce. These recommendations aren’t necessarily heavy or directly related to the pandemic or our work. Rather it's a collection intended to nourish and accompany our community as we all stay home together.

When the Helpers Need our Help

Our restaurant friends have shown up for us in extraordinary ways over the years with their skilled hands, big hearts, expert knowledge, creativity and efficient work. They’ve taught us through action about service and heaped generosity upon us helping raise thousands to fund our twin goals of cultivating community and alleviating hunger in our beloved city Nashville. They’ve had our backs—and thus, the backs of so many across this city. They’ve shown us all hospitality and provided space for building community at their welcome tables. And now our restaurant friends need us.

Sharing Hope

The blows our Middle Tennessee neighbors have endured since the beginning of March have been enormous. Our local community is entering into this pandemic already tired, afraid, economically strapped, and needing each other’s physical presence more than ever. The calls for social distancing are in direct conflict with our mission “to bring people together,” but our staff are soldiering on to nourish our community in these changing times with our actions, inaction, love, and prayers.

COVID-19 Response

COVID-19 Response

What a whirlwind, and what a hard couple of weeks for our community. After coming together as a city to respond to the devastation left by the tornadoes only ten days ago, we are now grappling with what it looks like to support one another when we are advised to no longer physically gather together. The warning is in direct conflict with our mission “to bring people together,” but in a time of so much unknown, we are taking both the needs of our community and the health and safety of our staff and program participants very seriously.