Chattanooga Christian School and CHATT Foundation Team Up Against Food Waste and Hunger in Chattanooga

A new partnership between Chattanooga Christian School and the CHATT Foundation is turning uneaten school lunches into hot, homestyle meals for Chattanooga neighbors in need.

Jimmy Meeker, Food Service Director at Chattanooga Christian School, spends his days making sure students are well-fed and all that good food doesn’t go to waste. SAGE Dining Services® manages the dining program at Chattanooga Christian, using its U+SAGE™ system to track and reduce food waste on campus. U+SAGE requires the dining team to sort and log different types of waste, from production scraps to leftovers from service. The data is used to tighten food use forecasting and improve sustainability.

But even with U+SAGE, which has helped the school significantly cut back on food waste, Meeker kept seeing high‑quality food left over at the end of lunch.

“I hated to just throw it away,” Meeker said. He wanted those extra servings of roast beef, chicken, and vegetables to go somewhere they were truly needed. So, he began searching for a local partner that could safely receive and serve the leftover food.

After a nudge from one of his chefs who had worked with a local nonprofit called the CHATT Foundation (Center for Homeless Advancement for Today and Tomorrow), Meeker reached out to the CHATT team. They were immediately on board.

Now, a little over a month into this new partnership, the routine at the end of each lunch shift at Chattanooga Christian School looks like this:

• The dining team tracks what’s left in U+SAGE and then pans, labels, and dates the food.
• The CHATT Foundation provides the aluminum pans, and SAGE supplies a standard donation form that covers both organizations from a food safety and liability standpoint.
• Every Friday morning, a CHATT Foundation driver arrives with a refrigerated box, signs the form, and transports the food directly to the foundation’s kitchen.

“It’s like clockwork, every Friday morning,” Meeker says. “Now we don’t waste a thing.”

Inside the CHATT Foundation’s kitchen on East 11th Street, Food Service Manager Kendal Adams sees the impact of Chattanooga Christian School's donations up close. The nonprofit serves three meals a day to homeless and low‑income men, women, and youth, relying heavily on community donations to keep the kitchen running.

She is quick to note that these are not meager scraps or cast‑offs: it’s high-quality food that’s presented to the organization with great care.

“Some places just donate their ‘end of the crop,’ especially if they know you’re feeding the homeless,” Adams said. “But Chattanooga Christian has gone above and beyond. We had roast beef and gravy, nicely seasoned chopped‑up chicken, homemade mashed potatoes, fresh carrots, and steamed squash. It’s amazing the dishes that they put together for the school, and what we get in turn. Our guests constantly get something different and flavorful.”

Because CHATT serves meals both in its main kitchen and at the adjacent Maclellan Shelter for single mothers and young children, Adams and her team can spread the donations across programs.

The partnership comes at a time when the cost of food has climbed sharply in tandem with SNAP restrictions, in a country where an estimated 30–40% of the food supply goes uneaten each year (according to the USDA) – even as millions of people continually struggle with food insecurity.

The CHATT Foundation is the only organization in Chattanooga, TN that serves three hot meals a day, every day, to people who are homeless or struggling to afford
groceries. “It’s not just homeless people,” Adams emphasizes. “We see single parents come in with their kids who have a roof over their heads but just can’t afford to feed their family. It’s the lights or food. So they come down here and eat.”

Because the foundation operates strictly on donations, steady sources of protein and fresh produce are vital but increasingly hard to come by. “With the economy lately, the donations for beef and chicken have slowed down,” Adams says.

Both Meeker and Adams see this collaboration as a blueprint for other schools and foodservice operations to pursue greater community stewardship.

Adams believes many schools simply don’t realize there are organizations ready to pick up and use their surplus food. “If there was a way that we could get that message out to more schools before they waste more food,” she says. “We’re blessed to have a truck that we can travel around and get that food.”

For Meeker, the work is personal, shaping how he runs his team and their food waste efforts today.

“First, control how to keep waste to a minimum in the first place,” he says. “Then if you have to get rid of food, at least get use out of it.”

At CHATT, Adams sees that principle materialized, meal by meal. “We’re often the only meal some people get, or their only hot cup of coffee for the day,” she says. “It’s a moment that makes them happy.”

As Chattanooga Christian School and the CHATT Foundation settle into their new rhythm, both organizations say there’s plenty of room for others to join in. But for now, each pan of their Friday pickups is one small but meaningful step toward a Chattanooga that feeds all of its neighbors well.

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Jordan Spangler / Reprinted with permission from SAGE Dining Services