By Dr. Nimali Fernando, MD, MPH | Founder, The Dr. Yum Project
I’m Dr. Nimali Fernando, a pediatrician and the founder of the Dr. Yum Project. I’m thrilled to introduce our organization as a new partner of the Alliance to End Hunger. It’s an honor to join a network of advocates and changemakers committed to nourishing our communities and ending hunger.
As a practicing pediatrician, I’ve spent years listening to families struggle with the same question: “How do I feed my kids well when I don’t have the time, money, or access to healthy food?” The problem isn’t always a lack of knowledge. Most parents know what their kids should eat—but real barriers like food insecurity, picky eating, and limited time or skills can make healthy meals feel out of reach.
I founded the Dr. Yum Project in 2013 to help bridge that gap. What began as a small teaching kitchen in Virginia has grown into a national nonprofit with a mission to help families and communities overcome barriers to eating well, starting with children.
Meeting Families Where They Are
At the heart of our work is the belief that food is more than just fuel. Food is connection, culture, learning, and love. Through our programs, we aim to help families develop a healthier relationship with food and see mealtime as an opportunity to thrive.
One of our flagship initiatives is Dr. Yum’s Food Adventure, a developmentally aligned, culturally responsive nutrition curriculum supplement for young-aged children. This hands-on program is being implemented in Head Start, YMCA, and other early learning settings across the country in 43 states and counting. It helps children build positive feeding behaviors and skills, like enjoying new foods and overcoming food fussiness, through cooking, tasting, and multisensory food exploration in a program designed by a team of child health and nutrition experts.
What makes our model special is that we don’t stop at the classroom door. We provide parents with take-home tools like bilingual recipe collections, budget-friendly meal planners, and strategies to help navigate food insecurity and limited resources. The most exciting part is seeing how food education directed towards children can shape food systems. After implementing the Food Adventure in our own district in Virginia for ten years, they now have the highest purchase of produce per student of any school in the state.
Hunger Isn’t Just About Calories
As a new member of the Alliance to End Hunger, I want to highlight a truth that drives our work: hunger is not just about the absence of food, it’s also about the absence of nourishing, developmentally supportive food experiences.
We’re especially concerned about the decline in support for nutrition education, which has dramatically limited access to evidence-based nutrition education for families who need it most. Community-based child care providers like the YMCA are serving more families affected by food insecurity, but many lack the resources to offer consistent nutrition education.
That’s where we come in. The Dr. Yum Project offers a practical, upstream, scalable solution to help families build food skills, even in low-resource settings. And we’re eager to partner with others in the Alliance who see food education as part of the solution, not separate from it.
Looking Ahead
We’re proud to join this community of leaders who understand that food equity starts early. Whether we’re training pediatricians, empowering early childhood educators, or working directly with families, we believe every child deserves the chance to grow up with a positive, empowered relationship with food.
We’re excited to learn from your work, share our tools, and build partnerships that bring developmentally informed food education to even more communities. If you’re working in early childhood, health care, or family services, I’d love to connect.
You can learn more about our work. and explore free resources at www.doctoryum.org. Thank you for welcoming us to the Alliance. Together, we can help every child grow up nourished, supported, and ready to thrive.
Warmly,
Dr. Nimali Fernando, MD, MPH
Founder, The Dr. Yum Project
