Today was my last day. Reflecting on it, it is cool to see how much I’ve grown from day 1 to now as well as how much I’ve impacted the Food Project. Yes, as a Turner Fellow you get paid, get a scholarship, and it helps your college resumé, but there is something much more beneficial than that. I remember a volunteer from day 1. I know her name, I know where she worked, and I remember really enjoying talking to her. I loved talking to volunteers who went all over the world, who have the best jokes, and tell you the weirdest yet most useful things. I think that I have learned more random but interesting facts from different volunteers than things in food service. I built some relationships with coworkers, superiors, and volunteers than I will never forget. That is some of how the Food Project helped me. But I also helped out the Food Project. I became a member of the “SWAT Team” because I was good at using the electronic fly zapper. I saved people time, I helped wherever people needed or asked me to. If I had a counter for the amount of times someone told me, “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you,” it would at least be in the double digits. Sometimes volunteers would be surprised to hear that I was in high school because of the leadership presence I had. I talked about David a few weeks ago, and normally he does not like volunteers to come into the truck with him, but he told me that because of the work I had done this summer that he was starting to change his mind. That is what the Turner Fellowship is, having an impact on a Nonprofit that in return will have an impact on you.

This past week was excellent. Monday was good, I remember getting a group of high schoolers who worked fast and diligent. I also remember juicing six cups of limes (that was like 70 limes), as well as sorting through peaches picked up from grocery stores that were going to be thrown out. On Tuesday we sorted through 15 flats of mandarins. That was…fun… I also helped with stripping some kale. On Wednesday I cooked some popcorn and helped out one of our cooks with moving a gigantic 35 quart batch of cheese sauce and helped clean that up. On Thursday I helped get some of the BBQ pork ready for our big fundraiser, Nourish. I also went out with David to Bells Bend Farm in the afternoon. I have Fridays off. On Saturday I helped sort the walk-in cooler in the morning and in the afternoon I helped set up the prep and facilitate volunteers. There are a lot of dishes in between, but that is what my average week looks like. You never know what you are going to do if you volunteer. However, if you don’t want to use a knife or work with meat or anything like that, there is still stuff to do. Anything from portioning mandarins to chopping fruit to steaming veggies. It’s a lot of fun and the more I work here the more I enjoy it.

Sorry this is two weeks late. I would like to talk about what I do on Thursdays. I go out with David on a truck and pick up food donations. Very exciting. For example, a non profit had extra rice, lentils and kale, so we picked up 400 pounds of rice and 50 pounds of lentils as well as 10 full garbage bags of kale. That’s a lot of food (I don’t think the headquarters has burned through all of it yet). But what was more intense was the fact that we had to catch twenty five bags of lentils… Anyway I really like that we have someone that can pick up donations instead of them using their time to bring it to a somewhat out of the way location (The Nations). Another one of the places I enjoy going to is Bells Bend farm, northwest of the city. (ish) They pledged to donate a certain amount of food this summer and they do not disappoint. This produce is fresh, pristine, and picturesque. The carrots are the thing that caught my eye the first time we went out there. Small orange carrots with big leafy tops, I don’t think I had ever seen carrot tops like it. Another thing that I remember was that they had something cooking and it was around noon. David asked, “What are you making?,” and a lady replied, “Lunch!” I loved that I get to see the full circle, the farm fresh produce, to the prep, to the cooking, to the serving and delivering. Thanks for reading!

Well, we are a little bit over halfway through the 240 hours needed. It’s been a lot of fun! We produce anywhere from 850-1,000 meals out a day. In order to fully capture how many meals a day this is, I am going to use an example from this week. Last Saturday we made 22 quarts of salad dressing. Roughly a two second pour of salt and slightly less pepper and granulated garlic, along with 3 and 1/2 tubs of olive oil and a tub and a half of vinegar. Ridiculous…Our family wouldn’t consume that in two years. So on Wednesday, we made a garden salad, with that dressing. I portioned the dressing into 1,2, or 4 cup containers. With 900 meals that day, we didn’t finish the dressing, but had 8-10 quarts left. They will use the rest this week. It is absolutely crazy the mass production that takes place in the Food Project. After 4 weeks it still blows my mind.

Chicken! Well, there are lots of things you can do with chicken, such as chicken wraps, chicken salad, fajita chicken, chicken in stir fry, grilled chicken, chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches, etc. The Nashville Food Project has two kitchens in the Nations area, their headquarters, and a kitchen at St. Luke’s, a preschool with a summer daycare program. On Mondays and Tuesdays I work at St. Luke’s, and they produce all of the cold meals, such as chicken wraps, and chicken Caesar salad. Obviously, there are more meals than that, but those are just a few examples including chicken. This kitchen is smaller, and the staff in charge are excellent people. I really enjoy working at this kitchen. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, I work at the headquarters, and they make the hot meals, such as stir fry, or pasta with chicken. This kitchen is newer, as we just moved there in December, and is also really fun to work at. At both kitchens the sense of community among the staff and the regular volunteers is great and it makes it an overall fun work environment. (This is a pitch to volunteer…) These kitchens are pumping out a lot of meals every day and they both contribute to the mission of the Food Project.

One thing that is absolutely amazing about the Nashville Food Project is that hardly any of the food donated goes into the trash. Most of the food can be salvaged or it goes into the compost. Composting can be annoying because of how stinky and disgusting it can get but it is worth it. Instead of going into landfills it gets broken down into soil. However, it can be difficult to start a compost at a house because of the smell as well as the space it takes up. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I got to cook some bacon and it smelled much better than the compost. However, a lot of stuff went in to this bacon besides just cooking it. People had to cut up the bacon into small pieces, which took work from volunteers, then I cooked it, but next the bacon will be used in something else that the chefs or cook team will work on. I enjoy the sense of community with my coworkers and I had a good Week 2.

The first week of my Fellowship is almost complete. I have enjoyed working with the people at the Nashville Food Project. The Food Project is pumping out so many meals. Most of the food we get is from donations. Grocery stores and some restaurants may not be able to use certain produce, so we can pick it up and use it. Most of the time it is a small bruise on one of the pieces of produce, so the rest of the package is usable. On Monday the kitchen at St. Luke’s received a big donation of produce, and it was crazy to think that all of the food would have been thrown out otherwise. On Tuesday I was so surprised that we were able to make 500+ sandwiches with only 4 volunteers. The Food Project is dependent on volunteers and if you’re reading this and would like to volunteer, go to the Nashville Food Project website and hit volunteer!

This is a photo from the donation we received on Monday. Lots of strawberries and blueberries!

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton