Statements
Mission
To empower kids to nourish their bodies, their families, and their communities through play-based food education.
Background
Taste Quest was founded on the idea that linking the power of play with the power of food would not only create unique and memorable encounters with cooking and nutrition, but also empower kids with knowledge, skills, healthier habits, and the ability to serve others. Taste Quest works on two premises: first, that playful learning alters our perspective positively by turning problems into puzzles we want to solve, and second, that the kitchen is the perfect laboratory for exploration, curiosity, and creativity. Taste Quest designs activities that leverage these ideas for maximum impact. We create games, stories, experiments, and crafts that give kids the motivation and agency to build a healthier relationship to food, develop critical life skills, and learn to serve their families and communities with food.
This effort was originally envisioned as a magazine, but evolved into digital content, community events, and afterschool enrichment until 2020, when the pandemic quickly ended in-person engagement. In 2021, we were approached by a partner organization experiencing a strange problem: The families receiving donated meals did not know how to use the food they received. They asked us if we could help with nutrition education for the kids who could then bring their knowledge and skills home with the donated food. We jumped at the opportunity and are now very proud to present our first curriculum kit, Snack Around the World: six play-based group activities emphasizing cross-cultural culinary curiosity, trying new foods, nutritional variety, and the ability to customize a dish. We tested these activities with groups across the Nashville metro area with resounding positive feedback. We hope to continue producing kits for groups across Nashville and beyond.
Impact
This past year we published our latest initiative: group activity kits for afterschool programs, camps, and homeschool tutorials. This represents a significant pivot for our organization as this focuses our content development for groups of kids instead of for individual children cooking at home. This shift, however, has proven extremely beneficial because it adds the elements of communication, collaboration, and group play, all of which encourage skill development and enhance the fun factor. From our tests with over 200 children between the ages of six and fourteen, the facilitators have universally reported positive feedback, including stories of kids trying new foods, attempting new skills, sharing stories from their heritage, demonstrating pride in their work, and expressing excitement to share what they learned with their families.
In the upcoming year we hope to accomplish the following things:
1. To capture data through our gamified assessment tool that is included in the kit. This data should show skill acquisition over time for our partner groups.
2. To raise $50,000 in a capital campaign. These funds will allow us to continue to produce these kits and distribute them to partners across Nashville.
3. To continue building partnerships with afterschool programs, camps, homeschool tutorials and pods, and any other groups interested in exploring the multifaceted benefits of food education.
Needs
Our top five most pressing needs include
1. Fundraising. We need to raise enough to produce kits for 75 groups (our target goal for the rest of 2022), and approximately $40,000 for design and operating expenses. Our hope is to raise enough for a hard launch for the kit by the start of the upcoming school year in early August.
2. Board Development. We need working board members who can assist in fundraising, nonprofit operations, content development, and/or navigating conversations with diverse communities.
3. Content Development: We need volunteers to help develop content both for our printed curriculum kits but also for our online library of activities and resources.
4. Networking: We need help connecting to potential donors and to potential partners.
5. Influencers: We need partners who can spread awareness about our mission and help expand our audience.
CEO Statement
Shortly after brainstorming the initial idea for Taste Quest, I stumbled across a one-minute YouTube video that perfectly expressed my vision and has shaped my thinking ever since. In the video, an elementary school class pulls out their lunch boxes and begins to eat. A young boy shakes his empty lunchbox and sadly walks into the hallway to avoid the shame and to distract himself from hunger. When he returns to his desk, he picks up his lunchbox and is amazed to find it full. In his absence, his classmates had filled his lunchbox with their own food. Incidentally, I still cannot recall this video, let alone watch it, without weeping at the beauty of the moment. This is what I want Taste Quest to do: not only to show kids how to nourish themselves, but for them to act on their own power to nourish others. I want to see kids beaming with pride as they playfully express their creativity, solve problems, experiment, and use food for all kinds of good.
Board Chair Statement
As a founding member of the Taste Quest board, I have been with the organization for four years since its inception and brainstorming phase. Since I first joined the board, Taste Quest has had to make a significant pivot, as many organizations have, due to the pandemic. As a play-based model, trying to get hands-on food education in front of kids when schools were closed and parents were overwhelmed was a significant challenge that caused us to revamp our entire model from a magazine structure (with more lift on parents) to an educational curriculum based in community partners and schools. In some ways the challenges of the pandemic gave us the opportunity to have more time to build out our curriculum and beta-test in small groups as schools reopened. Those small-group beta tests also allowed us to get very specific feedback from our partners, high engagement from a targeted audience of kids, and excellent opportunities for sharing and learning with those implementing the curriculum on the ground. Now that we have that feedback and feel more confident in our curriculum, our biggest challenge is fundraising. We want to be able to replicate this amazing curriculum with other school and community partners throughout middle-Tennessee and beyond, but we need funding to be able to develop and produce our high quality content and also assist any groups requiring financial aid to participate.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Education - Primary & Elementary Schools |
| Secondary Category: | Food, Agriculture & Nutrition - Nutrition |
| Tertiary Category: | Youth Development - Youth Development Programs |
Areas Served
Taste Quest is based in Nashville and we are primarily serving groups and families in the Nashville metro area, including some activity in nearby counties.
| TN - Davidson |
