At the Andrew Jackson Clubhouse of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Middle Tennessee, kids are spending the summer learning, growing—and thanks to The Nashville Food Project’s made-from-scratch meals—staying nourished, too.

Through the Sweet Peas Summer Eats for Kids program, sponsored by Jackson®, hundreds of healthy meals are delivered each week to support youth during a time when access to regular food can drop off.

This partnership is part of The Nashville Food Project’s Community Meals program, which brings nutritious food directly to organizations already creating safe, supportive spaces for young people.

Now in its sixth year, the collaboration with Jackson is helping serve over 100,000 meals this summer—fueling not just plates, but potential across the city.

AmeriCorps member Lilah Abrams writes about The Ark, one of our meals partners. The Ark addresses gaps in social services and community resources for seniors in Cheatham County, Tennessee. The Nashville Food Project shares about 100 meals each week with their seniors.

Food Access Coordinator Annie Slaughter writes about The Village at Glencliff, one of our meal partners. The Village at Glencliff is a medical respite community which aims to bring people experiencing homelessness dignified and quality medical care after they have been released from the hospital. The Nashville Food Project shares about 85 meals a week with the residents.

Over the summer, our meals were prepared, packaged and delivered to 16 meal partners for Sweet Peas, a summer program sharing healthful meals with kids during the critical months when school is out. Also critical, Sweet Peas happens thanks to the generous financial support of sponsor Jackson®, which funded the program to help share more than 18,000 meals this summer!

We currently share 80 meals each week with Community Care Fellowship for their lunch program, pre-school, and temporarily hotel housing program during COVID-19 for folks who have previously lived in encampments. Learn more about this new partner's long history at link.

As a people of fierce hope that believe in intersectionality and interdependence, we’ve also seen generous creativity implemented to help neighbors care for each other. We found this type of resistant and persistent care in the work and community fostered by Legacy Mission Village.

As for nutritious meals and snacks, we’re proud to partner with Project Transformation at three of their sites this summer. We know one in six children do not have access to the food they want and need. Lack of access can be even greater during the summer with the absence of school meals. Given this alarming information we launched a program last year called Sweet Peas: summer eats for kids. Now in its second year—amidst the current crisis—we know the need for nourishing meals is even greater.

At TNFP, we are always seeking creative ways to use the food in our care to better support our community. The result? Over 30 unique partnerships, each formed to match the needs of that unique community, from a fresh market set-up at a retirement community, to stocking comfort food for children waiting for placement in a foster or kinship home…

How do you create a community? It’s a big question with a complex answer. At The Nashville Food Project we believe it happens one meal and one relationship at a time. St. Luke’s Community House and TNFP are teaming up to paint a future filled with connection and meals for even more Nashvillians by sharing a space at St. Luke's called the Mural Room.

Our newest meal partnership uses a nourishing meal as a space to build community between two unlikely groups: senior residents of Wedgewood Towers and students from the University School of Nashville.

In January 2017, we began a partnership with the YWCA, providing weekday dinners for their Weaver Domestic Violence Center. This 51-bed shelter is the largest domestic violence shelter in Tennessee, providing a safe space for women and children escaping domestic violence (men are housed at another partner facility).

Earlier this month we sat down with one of our meal partners, Preston Taylor Ministries, to learn more about their program and how they are using The Nashville Food Project's food to support their work to education and instill students with academic perseverance.

On any day of the week, you can walk into the kitchen at St. Luke’s and be greeted with a smile and warm hello in the midst of all of the hustle and bustle that takes place when over 200 meals are being prepared for the day. This warm and inviting atmosphere is just one reflection of the great partnership that has been established between St. Luke’s and The Nashville Food Project.

Its lunchtime on a Thursday; which, means it’s time to load the truck up and hit the road. The destination: John Glenn and Peggy Ann Alsup Arbors Residential Center.

Evidence has shown that the more parents get involved in their children’s’ lives, the better the children learn, behave and develop. The Nashville Food Project’s newest meal partnership supports programming that invites immigrant families into schools to feel at home in these spaces, in order to connect and engage with their children’s education.

Five days a week, the office of Project Return, a nonprofit organization situated near a downtown bus line with views of the Nashville skyscape, hums with the purposeful activity of men and women determined to gain employment after returning from incarceration.

Thanks to the support of our incredible community, in 2016 The Nashville Food Project shared more food than ever before! Through a new partnership with St. Luke’s Community House and the addition of eight new meal partners, we doubled our annual meals production from 50,000 to 16 partners in 2015 to over 114,000 to 23 partners in 2016! 

This week The Nashville Food Project will share more than double the meals we served this week last year! In a "normal" week (we're always figuring out what that means), we’re currently sharing 3,000 delicious, nutritious meals and snacks each week as compared to 1,200 weekly meals only a year ago.

The food truck is a somewhat iconic image in the history of The Nashville Food Project. Since our earliest days, we’ve been driving these trucks all over the city, delivering meals to those who need them. Before the hot meals, before the gardens, we had the trucks…

Today's "Day in a Dozen" features a new, very exciting partnership with St. Luke's Community House. Last week we launched a new partnership with St. Luke's in West Nashville, serving 1,330 meals each week for St. Luke's preschool and mobile meals programs…

This February, TNFP began providing lunches to Friend’s Life Community, a nonprofit that empowers adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, their Friends, to live as independently as possible as they age out of other support services…

With a personality even bigger than his beard, Nate Paulk leaves just about everyone he meets with a big smile and an “I love you.” Employed by the United Methodist Church two and half years ago to help bring life into a church with a dwindling congregation, he works to connect people of the community to one another and to the space…