Future of Food Conversation Series Recap: Thinking Ahead While Honoring Our Past

By Allison Thayer, Director of Community Engagement at The Nashville Food Project

On May 2, the Nashville Food Project co-hosted the kickoff event for a community conversation series exploring “The Future of Food” in Nashville. The series, part of a collaboration with the FeedBack Nashville initiative and TN Local Food, is exploring how we can work together as a community to build a more equitable, just, and sustainable food future for everyone in our city. 

Each event features a moderated panel with audience Q&A, and the kickoff event brought an all-star lineup: Kia Jarmon, visionary leader and consultant, and founder of the Nonprofit Equity Collaborative; Amanda Little, Vanderbilt professor of journalism and author of The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World; and Samantha Veide, the Managing Director for Americas and Transformation at Forum for the Future (the organization providing convenient support for the FeedBack Nashville Initiative). Maris Masellis, of the Tennessee Environmental Council and the Critical Root Zone podcast, moderated the discussion.

Panelist Kia Jarmon chooses a word to represent her hopes for the future of the food system.

Maris Masellis and Amanda Little

Maris Masellis and Samantha Veide

The kickoff was a discussion titled Futurist Mindsets and the Pursuit of a Just & Regenerative Food Future. The panelists discussed how fostering system-oriented, forward-thinking mindsets — and honoring lessons from our past — are both critical to building momentum for positive change in our local food system. They discussed the potential role and risks of technology in creating more equitable access to affordable, nutritious food. But, they also discussed the need for a patient, human-centric process to drive lasting positive change. Audience members asked, among other things, what actions they could take to generate positive change in our food system, and the community shared their hopes for what Nashville’s food future might look like.

The next event in the series will be on Thursday, May 30 from 6:00-7:30pm at our HQ. It will feature panelists Rev. Jen Bailey of the Faith Matters Network and People’s Supper, Rasheedat Fetuga of Gideon’s Army, and Patricia Tarquino of Cosecha Community Development. The panel, and will be moderated by NPT’s Jerome Moore of Explore Social Change. You can read more about the conversation and RSVP to attend here.

Goodbye, Winter: Slowing Down To Show Up With Intention

by Julia Baynor, Director of Meals

A few years ago, in the middle of the pandemic, I wrote a blog post about ‘Wintering,’  a concept author Katherine May describes as a season inside of us that warrants intentionally slowing down, reflecting, and taking stock of what’s going on around you. In the rush of the holiday season, it's hard to think about slowing down for a second. Even when you make plans to relax during that time, the flow of life has its own trajectory, and things don’t always go to plan. 

With the holidays over, at the Food Project we gathered ourselves to set to do the work of another demanding year; but this is winter in the south, and eight inches of snow fell hard and fast on a Sunday night recently. Snow and ice have a way of putting a stop to things down here; this was the universe giving me a second to pause. At the end of the year I struggled to write new year's resolutions, just as I struggled to write this during our week trapped in our houses, surrounded by snow and ice. Many fuzzy beginnings of this post came as I stared out my window at the sparkling snow, watching fat snowflakes fall. In the very short moment I went outside, I slammed down into it and made a snow angel, feeling the cold on my face and breathing it in.

As a person whose personal resolutions mostly amount to what new things I want to learn to bake (I have a problem), this extra time to reflect came as a boon to me. I have been working at the Food Project for a long time now, and in the demands of the day to day, I don’t often make a lot of time to reflect on the ‘why’ because I am focused very intensely on the logistics of the ‘how.’ So I decided to spend some time sitting, reading, pondering and looking for the connections of the hows in the work that I do and the whys of a broader scope of this work. I worked my way backwards, thinking of recent events first. 

The week before Christmas, we had a huge community ask to fill in and support the local tornado relief, and our teams mobilized to help get needs met the best we could. In a few short days, we had cooked and shared a few thousand extra meals. Everyone was tired and ready to go home for the holidays, but this work has a way of making you show up, and we quickly worked together to figure out how to do what we needed to do. We used food procured intentionally that would’ve gone to waste to make meals for those who needed that comfort. We had people navigating all the logistics and driving out on the weekend to deliver that food, and people who showed up to partner with others and serve it to the community. That’s what’s inspiring about the people I work with, and about people in general. When it comes down to it, they dive headfirst into the struggle. In this and so many ways, food is resistance. Sharing a meal is something that can bring people together through hard times and something that makes it easier for us to come together to figure out the hard questions.

We navigate change at every turn, recognizing that each of us are going through changes in our own lives. Some who work here have recently become parents for the first time, have come to the end of relationships, or have just been engaged to get married. Some people have lost loved ones this past year. Some people are new here and are navigating a new space, new coworkers and new job. Many cherished in this space who have done good work have left or are leaving. Some have left but have found their way back, through the path of personal sabbatical. Some are exploring new ways to find their voice in this work. Humans go through so much just being humans, and it raises so many questions: How do we stay engaged in such a difficult world? How can we stay motivated to fight when the world around us can so often feels like it’s crumbling? We continue to listen to those who struggle and to meet them where they are. We continue to sit in our discomfort as we recognize we don’t have all the answers or solutions but still have the hunger and drive to try to figure them out together. We commit to amplifying voices of people who don’t have the privilege or platform that we do. 

I reflected more on the hows and the whys. The spirit of our work is constant action; but follow-through on any action requires the careful pre-work of intention setting. How does intentionality show up in the work I do every day, with the people I work alongside? 

I see the intentions of our mission cultivated in the little ways community is built in our space every day. 

I see it in the way Josh, our Catering Manager, sets aside time to make lunch for us; making sure anyone who wants something to eat, has something. 

I see it in the way our Procurement Director David loads hundreds and hundreds of pounds of donations in and out of his truck every day, but still stops me if I try to pick up something too heavy because “that one’s really a back breaker!”

I see it when our Facilities Manager, Landon, comes through the kitchen and never fails to ask, “How can I help?” Even when he has 17 things he has to fix or address on his own roster.

I see it when Annie, who is in charge of managing and cultivating relationships with our Community Meals Partners, comes to tell me about a conversation she had at a partner site, or a joke she shared with a student on a site visit, and her face lights up as she tells the story.

I see it in the willingness of our volunteers to show up and do the most menial and tedious tasks, no questions asked; from Cheri staying after helping to lead “Best Use” prep sessions to wash ALL the dishes piled up in our dish room, to Theresa and Shelley coming in to make hundreds of sandwiches (AGAIN!) for our partners receiving cold meals. All of these interactions are things I see every day, and being a witness to them brings me back to the words of our values, “we belong to each other.”

I talk about internal care and dwell on the care we show each other because not dwelling on those things can make the stark reality we navigate as humans living in this world that much harsher. So how do we stay engaged in such a difficult world? How can we stay motivated to fight when the world around us can so often feels like it’s crumbling? We continue to listen to those who struggle and to meet them where they are. We continue to sit in our discomfort as we recognize we don’t have all the answers or solutions but still have the hunger and drive to try to figure them out together. We commit to amplifying voices of people who don’t have the privilege or platform that we do. 

At the end of the day, we are people, we are tired, we are not perfect, but we are trying to figure it out. We have to work through a lot of issues to make it sustainable for the people who are doing this work, so we can better serve and work in concert with others to try to build a sustainable food web in our community. The way we build community internally amongst one another and with our volunteers has a direct correlation with the way we are able to show up for others. As we move toward expanding the horizons of our work by mapping the reality of our food system, we work to deepen relationships with partners we have already cultivated through our programming over the years, and with them, set to working with the larger food justice community to navigate and draw up that map, to study it, and to chart our course forward. 

At the conclusion of my series of ponderings, after a full week of ice and snow, there are always more questions. Why do people continue to do this work? Why does anyone choose to do something that is hard? At the close of my favorite essay by him, James Baldwin puts it this way:

“It is a mighty heritage, it is the human heritage, and it is all there is to trust. And I learned this through descending, as it were, into the eyes of my father and my mother. I wondered, when I was little, how they bore it-for I knew that they had much to bear. It had not yet occurred to me that I also would have much to bear; but they knew it, and the unimaginable rigors of their journey helped them to prepare me for mine. This is why one must say Yes to life and embrace it whenever it is found- and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it is; and if the father can say, Yes, Lord, the child can learn that most difficult of words, Amen. 

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.

The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”