An unexpected turn of events about 3 ½ years ago led me to volunteer at The Nashville Food Project (check out their website and mission here), where I have been happily volunteering ever since.
After I retired in early 2011, I started looking for somewhere to volunteer, but every place seemed to want full time help, and I did not want another “job”. Enter Fresh Harvest (John Drury and Tally May) from whom we have bought vegetables for many years. One day in the fall of 2012 Tally posted on Facebook that she had just taken a large donation of surplus vegetables to The Nashville Food Project (TNFP). This piqued my interest, so I “followed” TNFP on Facebook to see what it was all about. Shortly thereafter, a posting was made that TNFP was in need of more fresh herbs and asked if anyone had any excess in their gardens that they would be willing to donate. I had tons of Oregano, so I contacted them. Within a couple of days, Anne Sale, then the Hot Meals Manager (I think that was her title then, titles change from time to time!), came to the house to collect some of the oregano. We talked about TNFP, and I became even more interested. I was so excited to find that TNFP “shifts” were only about 2 hours each, and there were morning and afternoon options. I am an morning person, so the early times appealed to me, and I signed up to prep on a Tuesday morning. Thus began my nearly 4 year journey!
I started out in the prep room one morning per week prepping vegetables and other things for the cooks to work with. After a while, I started doing what we call the “truck runs” one afternoon per week, delivering the food to those in need. Both very rewarding! I also started cooking one day per month (with Joe), and filling in for other cooks when they could not be there. Soon, another morning prep time opened up, and I started working that, but mostly gave up the truck runs. I still fill in on the truck from time to time, but I’d rather be cooking or prepping. Then the chance came to cook another day per month (with Caren). Yay! I love it! Cooking for 75 or 100 is a lot different than home cooking! But we manage to do it in under 2 hours!
During the prep times, there were opportunities to do specific projects – for a while other volunteers (thanks Marilyn, Caren, Meera and all others who worked so hard on this!) and I made snacks for the refugee kids who came to work in our gardens and learn how to grow the produce they were used to in their home countries. When that project ended, we started making snacks for the Bhutanese refugees (adults) who worked in the gardens, and with that came the request to make meals that were familiar to them with produce that they had grown. It was so much fun to learn about their food culture and likes. Making those meals was a wonderful experience! Oh, the things we learned! And then unfortunately they lost their grant, so that project sadly ended, too.
Currently, Marilyn and I are working on another project. There is a group in Nashville called Friends Life (see here) that works with young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The participants are learning to make choices for themselves, but taking them to restaurants can be overwhelming for them. TNFP has partnered with them to provide meals two days each week with two choices per day. The choices use similar ingredients, but are most assuredly different from each other. Recently, we made a stir fry over rice: 
and with it a Coconut Curried Chicken:
They got to choose which they wanted. A wonderful outcome for all!
I am so enjoying my time with the TNFP folks! The staff and volunteers are all so wonderful, and the friends I have made will be with me for life! I am not going to name all these wonderful people lest I forget one – but you know who you are! I feel so fortunate to have found such good friends and cherish every one of them greatly!
