Hunger is Local. So are the Solutions.
A Foundation That Feeds
Food is a connective force. We offer soup when someone’s sick. We mark milestones over special dinners. We have familiar favorites that comfort us, strengthen us, and tie us to memories and moments. Meals mean so much more than sustenance.
Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee knows all too well that food insecurity is not an obvious crisis; it hides in plain sight.
“In Middle Tennessee, there’s about 455,000 food insecure neighbors,” said Troy Edwards, chief operating officer of Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee. “Many of these are folks that are working that have had trouble. They’re just folks that have had something happen in their lives, and they’re just looking for a little bit of help that lets them get through that. And it’s something we’re really, really committed to trying to help do.”
Strengthening Food Security
Hunger can hide in plain sight. That’s why local partnerships matter. See how Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee and Walmart associates are helping neighbors across Middle Tennessee.
When Nourishing Neighbors Becomes a Community Effort
“When I think about why we should get involved, it’s [because it’s] the community that we live in. It’s the community that our business and stores are in, so we should be involved in our community,” said Wade Hunt, Walmart market manager for Nashville. Personally, Wade also serves on the Board of Directors for Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee.
Food insecurity is felt and lived in kitchens and in classrooms, in workplaces and grocery store aisles. It can mean stretching groceries until cabinets are hollow or choosing between food and other essentials like rent or medicine. For families, the consequences ripple outward. Parents skip meals so their kids can eat. Children work harder to focus at school. Adults manage chronic health conditions with inconsistent access to nutritious food. Over time, food insecurity is closely linked to higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, anxiety and depression.
“I didn’t come from a family that had a silver spoon in my mouth. In my household, if we ran out of milk on a Tuesday and my dad got paid on Friday, we waited until Friday and that’s when we got more,” Wade continued. “And so when you understand that I think that it allows you to serve the bigger cause and to give back to the community the way it’s intended.”
Many associates from the Nashville area stores frequently volunteer at the Second Harvest Food Bank. A recent associate volunteer effort included 80 associates doing a “takeover,” meaning associates organized to work in every aspect of the food bank, including building backpacks for students and schools, sorting boxes, putting product together in the chilled areas and more.
“Having partners like Walmart that are willing to engage the community in this conversation and drive awareness…it takes all of us to get this done every day,” Edwards said.
A Force for Good
Local organizations are often the first to see who needs support and how needs are changing. Food banks — like Second Harvest of Middle Tennessee, Island Harvest Food Bank in Long Island, North Texas Food Bank and others across the country — can respond quickly to sudden life changes and events or natural disasters. Schools provide meals that may be the most reliable nutrition a child receives all day. Health clinics connect patients to food resources alongside medical care. And since around 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store, Walmart is uniquely positioned to improve food access through donations and community programs in local communities.
What makes these efforts powerful is coordination. When retailers like Walmart work with local governments, nonprofits, other businesses and health systems, food assistance becomes more than emergency relief. It becomes a force for good that grows to include help enrolling in benefits, nutrition education, mobile food distributions and investments that strengthen local food systems. These efforts recognize that hunger rarely exists alone.
Food insecurity is not a fringe issue or a distant crisis. It’s present in every state and nearly every community. Addressing it requires both national awareness and local action, empathy alongside efficiency. When communities come together — pooling resources, listening to neighbors and meeting people where they are — food security is understood to be a responsibility. And that shift, from short-term help to long-term resilience, is where real change begins.
