Turning Bachelorette Leftovers into Blessings: How Bach Bank is Saving Nashville’s Extra Snacks
Hey y’all! If you’ve spent more than five minutes in Music City on a weekend, you’ve definitely spotted them: matching sash-wearing, cowboy-boot-rocking bachelorette parties taking over Broadway. We love our “Bach Bash” visitors, but let’s be honest—when six of your besties buy groceries for a three-day weekend, there’s bound to be a small mountain of leftover chips, unopened seltzers, and bottled water sitting in the Airbnb on Sunday morning.
That exact scenario played out when Kaitlin Zurdosky’s friends came to town for a party. Packing up to leave, they asked Kaitlin—a Nashville local—if she wanted their leftover stash. She didn’t personally need a pantry full of extra party snacks, but the thought of tossing perfectly good food hurt her soul. Knowing how many folks in our community experience food insecurity, Kaitlin had an epiphany: if her friends were leaving behind crates of unopened food, thousands of other tourists were probably doing the exact same thing every single week.
“People come to Nashville to celebrate, and they don’t want people to go hungry,” Kaitlin shared. “So they overestimate how much they need, and then there is lots of uneaten food.”
The Dilemma: Why Good Food Was Getting Lost in Translation
Food waste is no joke. The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that up to 40 percent of food in the U.S. goes completely uneaten. While Nashville has made great strides toward sustainability, the tourist food-waste pipeline remained a tricky puzzle to solve.
Take Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, for instance. They do hero’s work feeding our neighbors, but as Jack Stell, manager of community partnerships, points out, sending a massive semi-truck isn’t practical for anything under 800 pounds of food. Plus, out-of-towners rarely have rental cars, don’t want to spend their last $30 on an Uber to a drop-off warehouse on Great Circle Road, and usually check out on weekends when main donation centers are closed.
Enter Kaitlin and her brilliant nonprofit creation: Bach Bank.
“What Kaitlin did was really inspiring,” says Stell. “You don’t see people very often who say, ‘I am going to solve this,’ and then stick with it.”
Porch-to-Trunk: How Bach Bank Works Its Magic
Instead of letting food hit the dumpster, Bach Bank created a grassroots, volunteer-driven rescue network. Here is how simple the process is for visitors and local rentals:
- The Alert: Guests leaving a short-term rental or hotel fill out a quick web form letting Bach Bank know extra goodies are waiting.
- The Pick-Up: A local volunteer swings by, grabs the items off the porch, and pops them straight into their trunk.
- The Drop-Off: The food goes directly to local shelters and community partners, bypassing the need for a massive warehouse.
So far, Bach Bank has rescued over 2,000 pounds of food! And while Kaitlin initially expected a Sunday-only rush, donations flow in every day of the week.
What’s in the Bag? (Hint: A Whole Lot of Limes!)
Bach Bank happily accepts unopened nonperishables like pasta, canned goods, bottled water, and chips. They can even take iced perishables and frozen items. They’ll even collect unused alcohol, which gets passed along to fellow local nonprofits for fundraising galas!
So, what is the single most common item rescued from Nashville’s party houses?
Limes. Turns out, folks buy them by the bucketful for weekend margaritas and end up leaving behind whole bags of citrus!
Jack Stell laughs that whenever he sees a batch of leftover margarita mix landing in the sorting room at Second Harvest, he immediately thinks, “Kaitlin was here.”
What’s Next for Music City’s Favorite Food Rescue?
Kaitlin—who balances Bach Bank with a full-time career in political communications—is just getting started. She’s currently partnering with short-term rental hosts to provide branded donation bags right on site. Even cooler? She’s putting her technology background to work by building a custom app to streamline pickup routes and show donors exactly which local organizations received their food.
Her work hasn’t gone unnoticed, either. In her very first year, she snagged the prestigious Tallu Quinn Serving Spoon Award at the Phila Awards for her dedication to the culinary community.
Looking ahead, Kaitlin plans to expand the Bach Bank model to other party-loving tourist hot spots—with Las Vegas high on the wishlist. But no matter how big Bach Bank grows, its heart stays right here in Nashville.
It turns out that beneath all that fringe, glitter, and country music, Nashville visitors really do want to leave our city a little better than they found it. And thanks to Bach Bank, doing good is as easy as leaving a bag of limes on the porch. Now *that* is what we call a sweet Southern happy ending!