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A collection of both area and national profits once again took their places at Bonnaroo’s Nonprofit Village, located in the music festival’s Centeroo during the 2024 edition of the annual music festival.

Stuart Murphy, kitchen manager of The Nashville Food Project, said the Nashville-based nonprofit has been invited to participate in Bonnaroo for the past few years and it has proven to be beneficial.

“It is actually pretty important,” Murphy said. “Last year we had a few volunteers that said they saw us at Bonnaroo. It is nice to be able to spread the word but in kind of a different environment.”

Murphy said the nonprofit grows, cooks and shares about 5,000 meals each week to help alleviate food insecurity in the Nashville area. The meals are distributed through its 60 partners organizations.

“We also have a few gardens where we grow a lot of produce and kind of our own distribution team to kind of coordinate and deliver all of that stuff,” he said.

Murphy said another aspect of The Nashville Food Project is its efforts to minimize food waste.

“A lot of our cooking comes from diverting food that would be going into a landfill,” he said. “Essentially if you broke it down per plate, it is like 80% of our food is made up of what would be thrown in a landfill.”

Murphy said some of that food is donated by restaurants, but they also have someone picking up items from area grocery stores and receive private donations from individuals.

Another Nashville-based nonprofit, Shower The People, also set up shop at Bonnaroo this year.

“We are a mobile hygiene bus that we take out in Nashville and Davidson County and we provide mobile shower services for persons experiencing homelessness,” Hannah Rose said.

Rose said there can be a lot of stigmas surrounding those experiencing homelessness and their ability to access basic hygiene such as showers.

“We just wanted to be able to try to meet people where they were at and kind of fill a gap,” she said.

Visitors to the Shower The People booth during Bonnaroo could try their hand at tie-dying a towel that will be utilized on the nonprofit’s bus.

“Every towel that is tie-dyed here is a towel that we get to keep on our bus and use and even something as small as a little tie-dye towel can really bring some smiles to faces who maybe aren’t always having the best time,” Rose said.

Nashville Launch Pad also took the opportunity to make the trek out to The Farm to share information about the nonprofit that works to provide temporary housing for unhoused young adults.

“We are a shelter and support system, our age range is 18-24 or 18-26 depending on which of the tree programs you are asking about. Program Director Micah Sciarappa said.

“People mostly know us for our emergency shelters,” she said. “We run a shelter from November until the end of March for young adults so they can get off the streets.”

Sciarappa said she would love to see the nonprofit expand its capabilities from being able to shelter 20 young adults per night.

“Twenty young adults a night is nowhere near the amount that actually need housing,” she said. “I would love to be able to expand soon, I would love to be able to house and help more young adults eventually.”