Since 1975, Manna was the force behind one of the first Child Care Food Programs in the Southeast, successfully advocated for bringing Women, Infants and Children (WIC) to Nashville, fought for and won a state-wide mandate for school breakfast, researched emergency food options to bring Second Harvest Food Bank to Nashville, and monitored food stamp program implementation while advocating for state-wide food stamp access.
Meanwhile, nationally and locally, a movement focused on food access issues was growing —concerns about food safety, increased awareness about sustainability and environmental degradation, a growing interest in local food production and gardening, and concern over growing food insecurity. Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies (VIPPS) incubated and birthed Food Security Partners (FSP) in 2007 to lead Nashville’s food security movement. Their approach to entrenched health and social issues is new, holistic and dynamic. FSP links access to healthy foods and pressing public health concerns (especially childhood obesity) to food production, food distribution and environmental concerns.
The merger provides an updated and reinvigorated focus for Manna, and gives FSP new autonomy. The new organization will continue to carry out Food Stamp Outreach and Personal and Policy Advocacy, while also working to create and sustain a secure and healthy food system for Middle Tennessee, from production to consumption.
Manna’s Child Care Food Program (CCFP), our longest-standing initiative, will not join us in the merger. Child Care Food Program director, Algerine Bridges, decided that CCFP would function more effectively as an independent organization. They are currently in the process of obtaining their own 501 (c) (3) status and creating their new name. It is a significant loss - when considering Manna’s history, Bill Barnes recalls Algerine: “Let me tell you the story of Algerine Bridges. She is a heroine…” We recognize Algerine with admiration and appreciation, for serving as the leader of Manna’s flagship program in our efforts to eliminate hunger.
Now it is time to chart new waters and celebrate Nashville’s new, premier food-justice organization at our Annual Dinner and Merger Celebration on December 3rd. Thank you for all of your support throughout the years!
