How this Miami group combats food insecurity using restaurant leftovers

On Friday mornings, a historic church in Overtown becomes a bustling kitchen. The wafting smell of buttery grits floats in the air and the sound of oil crackling in pans bounces off concrete walls.

Adam Snitzer, co-founder of Nourish Miami, captains this well-oiled machine. Ready to go at 6:15 a.m., volunteers scoop rice into containers. Another pair place halved pastries, including pain au chocolats and croissants, onto large trays.

As 8 a.m. approaches, Snitzer and the Nourish Miami team stack trays of steaming food outside the Greater Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. A stack of 125 plates and a roll of red tickets sit on one end of the table. On the opposite end, past the giant pot of grits, is a jug of coffee and juice. It’s almost go time.

Created only a year ago, Nourish Miami is a food recovery and redistribution organization that turns luxurious leftovers into quality meals for those in need. The organization collects food from restaurants and resorts like The Capital Grille, JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort and Spa and The Surf Club and uses it to make meals for those facing food insecurity. Snitzer and his rotation of volunteers feed about 1,200 people a week, focusing their efforts in Overtown, Liberty City, Little Haiti, Allapattah and Brownsville. Recent data shows that 15 percent of Miami-Dade County residents are food insecure.

“What we’re really trying to do is connect the hospitality industry with the food insecure people in the urban core,” Snitzer said.

And the menu is something out of a five-star restaurant — sausage, bacon, eggs, home-fried potatoes with steak, pastries and shrimp and grits.

Snitzer, the former senior vice president of MSC Cruises, discovered a passion for food the way a lot of people did — being stuck at home during the pandemic. As his retirement crept up on him, he knew he couldn’t work in a kitchen. Instead, he began volunteering, but was never satisfied.

“They don’t give volunteers really meaningful stuff to do,” he said.

In his search for better opportunities, he came across The Village (FREE)DGE, a grassroots organization based in Liberty City that stocks community fridges. Eager to make his own difference, Nourish Miami was born.

First Snitzer began collecting food in his sedan, then upgraded to a truck, then a van. Now, he uses the Poinciana Park Elementary School kitchen as a commissary and sets up at the Greater Bethel AME Church every Friday morning to serve a nutritious breakfast.

John Barker, Nourish Miami co-founder and community chef, spends his Friday mornings alongside volunteers scrambling eggs and seasoning shrimp. A retired lawyer, Barker says he doesn’t mind waking up at 5 a.m. when the work is so rewarding.

They’ve gone from feeding 60 people three months ago to consistently feeding around 115 people a week at the church.

Barker said Nourish Miami typically collects food Tuesdays and Thursdays. CookUnity, a meal preparation subscription service with menus cultivated by local chefs, provides 40 to 60 half plates filled with ready-to-go meals, and places like Turnberry sometimes provide shrimp and other quality ingredients.

‘There’s so much food waste’

Brian Kenny, the executive director of culinary at the JW Marriott Turnberry, was happy to work with Nourish Miami after he was approached by Snitzer. When Kenny worked with hotels in Las Vegas, sustainability programs were already in place to encourage food recycling. He was surprised to see it wasn’t the same in South Florida.

“We have a lot of food that customers don’t eat,” Kenny said. “We have a walk-in cooler, and it’s locked up. We gave Adam’s team the combination.”

Some pickups can contain as much as 1,000 pounds of food. Kenny believes it benefits everyone involved — Marriott as a company gets to give back to its community, and plenty of high-quality produce gets put to use feeding some of Miami’s most food-insecure communities.

“That’s always the biggest problem with sustainability…is having somebody who wants to do it,” he said. “But finding that person or that group that is excited…it was kind of fate that Adam approached us.”

Volunteers from MSC Cruises spent their Friday morning with Nourish Miami last week. Natasha Fernandez, a 26-year-old manager of media relations, helped pack and distribute lunches with arroz congri, plantains and a variety of proteins.

“You start understanding and learning that there’s so much food waste that goes into our communities,” Fernandez said.

She believes the organization’s collaboration with local businesses can be the start of something bigger.

The line outside the Greater Bethel AME Church began to move once each person was handed a red ticket. Women were ushered to the start of the line, and the assembly line of serving spoons was set in motion.

That day, Nourish Miami fed over 125 people, a new record. There was enough food for people to come back for seconds.

Snitzer says its just beginning. His goal for Nourish Miami is to feed 5,000 people three times a week. Between Friday breakfast, the community kitchen, offering takeout containers at the Overtown Youth Center and their collaborations with The Village (FREE)DGE, he continues to expand their efforts to reach the food insecure.

Kim Williams, 59, first noticed Nourish Miami as she was walking by. She’s been stopping by for the past two months. While she visits friends to help prepare lunch and dinner, she said she appreciates the effort the organization puts into providing a nutritious breakfast.

“I hope they can continue because there’s going to be people that don’t know about it,” Williams said. “It would be nice if they could advertise somehow so more people can take advantage.”

Zacharia Robinson, 41, also learned about Nourish Miami and Greater Bethel AME Church through a friend. He was told there was a church where he could get clothes, access a shower and grab some breakfast on Friday mornings. He said since Nourish Miami began serving breakfast at the church, he’s felt a real sense of community among the people who Nourish Miami is helping.

“It’s right where it’s needed,” Robinson said.

This story was originally published June 11, 2026 at 4:30 AM.