Landon is a native Nashvillian and middle Tennessean. After spending his collegiate years in Memphis, he moved back home with his wife Morgan. His passions include being on stages across town, tending to his garden, and supporting Aston Villa Football Club. Landon is grateful everyday for the people he has the privilege to work with, and the opportunity to add to the community he calls home.
Bianca Morton, Chief Culinary Officer
Hanes Motsinger, Chief Program Officer
Hanes Motsinger grew up on a farm in State Road, North Carolina, a rural community located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Throughout her childhood, she spent the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas helping her grandparents on their small "choose and cut" Christmas tree farm in Allegheny County, North Carolina. In hindsight, that early experience piqued her wonder for the natural world and her curiosity about agriculture and land-based livelihoods.
Today, Hanes' professional life is defined by the pursuit of social and environmental justice, and her engagement with this work has consistently returned to food and agriculture. She has spent time working with farm-to-table kitchens, migrant farmworker rights organizations, agricultural land trusts, and the global coffee sector. She is ecstatic about joining The Nashville Food Project and diving deep into the work of building community and justice through food (what a dream)! When she's not at work, you can find Hanes beekeeping, playing clawhammer banjo, tasting new coffees from around the world, or visiting the mountains of North Carolina. She moved to Nashville in May 2019.
Stuart Murphy, Meals Coordinator
Born and raised in Nashville, TN, Stuart Murphy has been in the food industry for the last 12 years, with a heavy focus on whole animal butchery. He started out as a dishwasher at Porter Road Butcher and climbed his way to being one of the lead butchers there. He is very passionate about food and meat, especially when it comes to the ethics of how things are cultivated and raised. Between working in a couple butcher shops and getting the full restaurant experience at Henrietta Red (a truly magical experience), he has had the opportunity to experience the full circle of the food industry and cooking world. But he knows that there is a seemingly infinite amount to learn.
What brought Stuart to TNFP is their mission. He says, “Quality food shouldn’t be hard to come by no matter what a person’s socioeconomic status is. Everyone deserves to eat well and that really struck a (positive) chord with me, and something I wanted to be a part of!”
In his spare time, Stuart likes to play Rocket League (it’s soccer, but with cars that can fly), work on pencil drawings when he is feeling motivated, cooking and eating food, and petting all the dogs in the world.
Arianna Nimocks, Volunteer Engagement Manager
Arianna was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and raised outside of Houston, Texas. She has fond memories of growing onions, tomatoes, and peas in her garden and cooking up international dishes for her family and friends while growing up. She delved into the intersection of agriculture and economics through her Economics thesis, biology research, and internships in college where she also cultivated a strong passion for building community through her campus leadership and volunteer work.
Since July of 2020, her time volunteering at BELL Community Garden in Nashville further solidified her desire to do “boots-on-the-ground” work in sustainable agriculture and community development. She strongly believes that food has the power to bring people together, and is so excited to be at a nonprofit actively fighting hunger and poverty and strengthening community in the city she now calls home.
When not at TNFP, you can find her at a local coffee shop reading or journaling, working at the BELL Community Garden, walking or running through one of the Warner parks, or enjoying quality time and conversations with friends.
Adria Osborne, Community Garden Program Manager
Adria was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised in Houston, Texas where she grew up with a deep love of the outdoors. Her curiosity and fascination with plants and animals began early in her childhood as she watched the life cycle of plants grow with her mother in the spring and enjoyed the fruits of their labor. Her love for nature grew as she got older, and in high school, she discovered her passion for agriculture after joining her Future Farmers of America chapter.
During her time in FFA, Adria gained a wealth of knowledge and experience in livestock management and promoting agricultural education. She became a skilled steward of the land, teaching young children about the importance of agriculture in our lives and the vital role it plays in our society. Her experience with the FFA solidified her passion for agriculture and nature, and she knew she wanted to pursue a career in environmental science.
After completing high school, Adria moved to Tennessee and immersed herself deeply in learning about the state's native flora and fauna. She spent her time exploring all four corners of the state and developing a deeper understanding of Tennessee's natural resources. Her passion for the environment continued to grow, and in 2020 she graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a degree in Environmental Science.
During her time at UTC, Adria delved deeper into her love for the environment and became an advocate for food justice. She believes everyone can do their part to ensure land and food equity and is passionate about educating others on the importance of environmental conservation. Adria is a dedicated environmentalist who enjoys sharing her knowledge with others and finding new ways to make a positive impact on the world around us.
In her free time, Adria loves to hike and explore the great outdoors. She also enjoys, cooking, attending live concerts/festivals, and tending to her own garden, where she grows various plants and vegetables. Her love for nature is evident in everything she does, and she is constantly seeking new ways to connect with and protect the environment.
Amanda Richard, Director of Development
Growing up in rural Ohio, Amanda has always had a connection with farms and the land that grows our food. Her most favorite memories are the times spent in her small town with her grandparents growing tomatoes, green beans, and beets, fishing, and foraging for mushrooms. But her most formative time was spent in the kitchen with family. From standing on a chair at the counter learning to cook with her Pappa, to exploring new cultures through food with her mom, food has always been the center of her life.
Amanda moved to Nashville in 1998 to attend Belmont University. She received her degree in Music Business and worked in music publishing right out of college. She soon realized that she wanted more from her career and found herself drawn to nonprofit work. For over 17 years, Amanda has worked as a fundraiser at some of Nashville’s most notable nonprofits, including Second Harvest Food Bank, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville Zoo, and the Adventure Science Center. Her most recent experiences at The Branch of Nashville and the global animal welfare organization, Compassion in World Farming, gave her greater insight into what it takes to create a sustainable, equitable food system.
Amanda is excited to join the team at TNFP and unite her personal passions of cooking, sharing meals, and building community with her professional fundraising and relationship building skills. When she’s not at TNFP, Amanda loves to cook and create recipes for her blog, read, and check out new restaurants with her husband.
Josh Rickerman, Catering Manager
Thena Robertson, Preschool Meals Manager
Thena moved to Nashville from Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2022. In Milwaukee, she owned and operated an in-home childcare program and assisted with her family’s childcare center. Through her efforts toward providing for children, she realized the importance of food access for families and children. Her passion for connecting children to nourishing food eventually brought her to The Nashville Food Project’s satellite kitchen at St. Luke’s Community House, where she leads production of meals for the organization’s preschool students. Outside of work, Thena enjoys cooking, refurbishing furniture, and spending time with her two children and three grandchildren.
C.J. Sentell, Chief Executive Officer
Mary Elizabeth Smithson, Community Meals Partnership Manager
Mary Elizabeth Smithson is originally from Jackson, Mississippi and made her way to Nashville in 2017. Her original plan to get a post-grad degree in Sociology, after graduating from the University of Mississippi with a BA in Anthropology/Sociology in 2014, took an interesting twist when she completed three years of AmeriCorps programs. She got her start in the food world with two service years of FoodCorps in Oxford, Mississippi from 2015-2017 and fell in love with the work. While in Nashville, she juggled a few different jobs as a farm educator, an after-school garden instructor, and a meal prep cook before a stint in New Orleans at a meal prep company, where she managed the plating/packaging department. She returned to Nashville in August 2020, reconnecting with friends and spending more time on her hobbies, such as sewing and roller skating. She is thrilled to be in community with TNFP coworkers who are driven by food justice, sustainability, and alleviating hunger. Once the pandemic lets up, you'll be sure to find her at a music festival dancing to her favorite artists, traveling to new places to see what else is out there, or simply cooking in her kitchen with friends and family.
Allison Thayer, Director of Community Engagement
Allison grew up in Florida with a Spanish mother who loved (and excelled at!) cooking, which she absorbed from a young age. As a child, she would watch Emeril Live and emphatically mimic his famous “Bam!” when helping in the kitchen. She also cares deeply about nature, conservation, and sustainable food production, and spends as much of her ‘time off’ as possible exploring the outdoors. Since moving to Nashville in 2015, she has been steadily inserting herself into the local food system: as a regular CSA customer, a member of the Nashville Food Co-Op, an active participant in events focused on local food production and waste reduction, and most recently as a weekly volunteer on the Caney Fork Farms Vegetable Team.
Allison has a degree in English and Latin American Studies from the University of Notre Dame. She moved to Spain to teach English through the Fulbright Program, then on to Washington DC to work as a research consultant for postsecondary education institutions. The rest (and majority) of her career has been spent working in corporate strategy and operations at a multinational research and consulting firm. She is delighted to be making a career shift that allows her to focus on growing sustainable food systems and communities.
Outside of work Allison enjoys cooking, hiking, and spending time with her husband, child, and dog. She dreams of one day owning a tapas bar or an on-farm restaurant, as long as it doesn’t have to be profitable.