Dear John,

This Black History Month, we’re spotlighting Nayshma Jones, one of our very own program managers for No Kid Hungry Florida.

She discusses Black joy, gratitude, and how her Blackness and cultural identity have made her work toward ending childhood hunger come full circle.

Jones tells us how her experience, first as a student struggling to find culturally familiar foods in school, and then as a teacher witnessing her own students struggling with food insecurity, both inform how she aids No Kid Hungry. This includes closing nutritional gaps for students by employing her “knowledge of culture, history, health equity, and community engagement.”

On the community created through Creole and Black Caribbean-American foods, Jones says, “although separated, we’ve managed to subconsciously remain united. This is evidenced in the familiarity of our traditions, languages, mannerisms and arguably most prevalent in our foods.”

Her lack of access to such community and culturally familiar foods as a student within the American public school system led her to be as passionate as she is today about working to ensure that students’ voices and food preferences are heard. She doesn’t just work to ensure that no kid goes hungry — she works to ensure that no kid feels culturally isolated in regard to food.

Her Blackness and the intersection of her various cultural identities have given her this voice: “the intersections of Blackness continue to expand calling for organizations, industries, and institutions to take pause, to fully study and appreciate the true diversity of Blackness.”