No More Empty Pots

The food entrepreneur program housed in the collaborative centered food hub provides educational opportunites, job training, entrepreneurship support, access to affordable healthy foods, and community collaboration. The food hub includes three commercial kitchens used for food production by entrepreneurs to start and grow food focused businesses and for instruction in the culinary certificate program. In 2022, 25 entrepreneurs booked 1,907 hours in the commercial kitchens. In addition, the food hub serves as a training facility for an eight week licensed culinary training program for unemployed/underemployed individuals. In 2022, the culinary certificate program provided 1,356 hours of programming to 13 students. The food hub also provides for food distribution programs like community harvest and feeding our neighbors programs to improve community food related knowledge and self-sufficiency by providing food access, training, education, and work experience opportunities.

Community education provides hands-on nutrition, gardening and cooking education programming using local, seasonal and affordable foods while intergrating steam components (science, technology, engineering art, and math). In 2022, these programs provided 1,072 hours of programming to 1,658 youth, adults, and seniors and partnered with over 25 different community-based organizations. The program activites have been delivered since 2011 and expanded with the completion of the kids kitchen in a renovation completed in 2019, providing 12 individual cooking stations.

No More Empty Pots' community harvest and feeding our neighbors programs respond to urgent community needs for food and nutrition to omaha's most vulnerable community members and their families with limited ability to prepare/access nutritious meals. No More Empty Pots addresses the immediate community food needs as a result of the pandemic. In 2022, No More Empty Pots distributed over 12,533 prepared meals and distributed over 4,666 boxes of local produce and products to over 2,000 people in 39 zip codes in Nebraska and Iowa in collaboration with over 27 farmers and collaborating organizations. We maximize efficiency and impact by leveraging partnerships with local producers, businesses, community organziations, and volunteers with available resources. All meals are made from scratch with produce sourced from local farmers and local food distributors, providing a diet that is data-driven to improve health and prevent disease.