No More Empty Pots brings healing through food during difficult times

Juli Oberlander • October 1, 2020

No More Empty Pots brings healing through food during difficult times

Photos courtesy of Amy Zeller and Kate Swinarski

Since 2010, No More Empty Pots (NMEP) has provided holistic support to Omaha and surrounding communities.

A nonprofit organization, No More Empty Pots works with various public and private partners to help increase food security and economic resilience throughout the Omaha area. When COVID-19 touched the region in March, No More Empty Pots launched Feeding Our Neighbors to provide emergency food relief to families affected by the pandemic.

Throughout 2020, Feeding Our Neighbors has provided ongoing emergency response to urgent community needs for food relief. Amy Zeller, communications strategy coordinator for No More Empty Pots, says the service distributes weekly plant-based meals prepared by professional chefs using local, seasonal ingredients. From March to August, the team prepared and packaged 26,256 meals for 8,804 individuals across 46 zip codes in two states.

"The community guided our response and continues to be the program’s driving force," Zeller says. "Food insecurity is on the rise and our neighbors are in need."

Kate Swinarski, evaluation and engagement manager for No More Empty Pots, says the nonprofit distributed more than 6,000 meals to over 2,000 unique participants in August alone.

One of those participants is Kiley Rae. Along with her mother and her grandfather, Kiley Rae has been experiencing food insecurity during COVID-19.

Swinarksi says Kiley Rae's grandfather Wally, an 88-year-old widowed veteran, loves healthy food and finds it essential to longevity. In July, Kiley Rae introduced her grandfather to No More Empty Pots and brought him a couple of prepackaged meals. Three months later, Wally continues to enjoy and look forward to the weekly meals.

"It feels good to know that my grandpa has consistent, quality, local food sources, and that NMEP wants him to be nourished as much as I do," Kiley Rae says. "Grandpa helped instill the importance of food as medicine in me, and by that concept, we both agree that NMEP delivers the best medicine to my grandpa."

Zeller says Kiley Rae contacted No More Empty Pots with her concerns about her family members and her grandfather's health. She wanted to find an organization that could provide her grandfather access to consistent, quality meals necessary to sustaining his health and strength during the pandemic.

"Since then, Feeding Our Neighbors and our team of community partnerships and support staff at No More Empty Pots have walked alongside Kiley and her family to provide proactive, holistic support beyond only providing food," Zeller says. "In addition to providing care calls to check in on meal recipients, recipes and nutrition information are customized and included in each food delivery to enhance community knowledge and build individual self-sufficiency over time."

Over the last few months, Zeller says No More Empty Pots has continued to uphold the economic resilience of small business owners by purchasing locally grown produce directly from farmers and food artisans for the meals and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) produce boxes. In-house culinary professionals lead a team of culinary students, staff members and community volunteers to create healthy meals for participants like Kiley and her grandfather every week.

Zeller says the food has provided comfort to families impacted by the pandemic.

"That medicine is food," she says. "At No More Empty Pots, we value the healing power of food to build communities, relationships, and even our economy during hardship. With Feeding Our Neighbors, that is happening one neighbor and one meal at a time."