Feeding America doesn't feed rural communities

[Rebel Rose]

Pears sell from the farm for $650 a ton. That's 32.5 cents a pound. Retail for fresh pears is $1.46 per pound. That's a 450% markup. In other words, your local farmer gets 20% of what you pay at the grocery.

 

And that’s gross income, before his cost for mortgages, buildings, roads, fences, equipment, seed, irrigation, crop management, labor, transportation, family salaries and health costs. 32 cents out of your $1.46. Gross income.

 

This is just one example that illustrates produce costs across the board.

 

My rural community has a 17.1% unemployment rate. 1 in 6 people are food insecure.

 

And yet, which economically-challenged communities are the most under-served by hunger missions like Feeding America?

Rural communities.

 

The vast bulk of food bank action happens in urban areas. They get huge donations of food from food processors, hospitals, grocery chains, bakeries.

Here's a screenshot from the financial statements of western Washington's major Feeding America partner, Food Lifeline. They receive $10 million in income per year and $75 million in food donations. Look at their budget for rural food delivery.

 

 

 

This is not to take away from the fine work they do for urban areas, but to illustrate that there's just NO SUPPORT for the rural communities that ACTUALLY GROW the fresh produce that is trickled into the hunger mission food chain.

 

Granted, a lot of these little hunger missions don't qualify for deliveries of fresh produce because they don't have walk-in coolers. Or they don't have a forklift. Or they don't have county-approved kitchens. But the fact remains that the bulk of what rural communities grow and their downstream doesn't sell is channeled into Utah-sized warehouses for delivery to urban area homeless and hunger shelters.

 

Solutions?

 

 

 

PS. I notice there's no tag for 'hunger' on eGullet.

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Rebel Rose (log)

[kayb]

From the standpoint of having been involved in hunger relief efforts on a rural basis (in the Arkansas Delta, one of the richest agricultural regions in the world, but also one which raises the smallest percentages of produce per acre in the world, and one of the poorest regions in America), the quick answer is it's much more efficient and effective to feed large numbers of poor where they tend to congregate -- in urban areas. 

 

I live in a small city of 75,000 in the middle of a BIG rural area that encompasses both delta and hill country. I volunteer at a weekly soup kitchen as well as working with the local food bank. The food bank, in turn, provides food to a number of food pantries in smaller communities in the region. That doesn't count as food "delivered" to rural areas -- because food pantry volunteers from Cherry Valley United Methodist Church, et. al., come get it. Pantries work better in rural areas than do feeding programs, because of the transportation issue; people who can get to town once a week to pick up staples at a pantry likely could not get there every day for a hot meal.

 

We've also seen some success with community gardens. This is a commodity row-crop agricultural economy around here: cotton, corn, soybeans, rice, winter wheat. Many rural folk will at least have a kitchen garden and a few chickens, at least those who live out in the country. In town, churches and public schools have taken the lead in community garden programs.

 

There has been some success with feeding programs for children in the summer, using school buses for transportation, or conversely, paying for delivery of meals to rural centers like churches. But with the current administration, funding for that is threatened.

 

None of which touches your post's central point, about the farmer getting only a small portion of the ultimate price paid for the food he produces. All we can do, I reckon, is keep on buying as directly from the farmer as we can, as consistently as we can. I know I spend a lot less at the grocery store than I used to.

 

It makes me crazy that anyone in this, the wealthiest nation in the world, should be hungry. 

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Thanks to Social Security, our government's program to provide economic assistance to the elderly, I am doing rather well.  There was a time back when that I had no income and craved the crumbs from the not-so-local soup kitchen (in truth rather tasty stuff).

 

I am thankful for the people who do this.  I don't know how the farmers fit in.

 

[Lisa Shock]

I am wondering why the purchase of beef is in that budget, when protein from beans would be a fraction of the cost, and not require refrigeration/freezing for long term storage? There would be other savings in converting to vegetable based proteins: no need for the red cutting boards, less worries about foodborne illness, less labor to process (trimming, slicing), fewer knives needed in the kitchen, and less grease to be processed as waste. -It's all probably due to some federal mandate voted in by congress under pressure from the beef lobby to provide 'high quality protein'.

[Anna N]

I don't think the idea that a vegetable-based diet carries less risk of food-borne illness holds up to scrutiny.  A minor point in the argument but one I think that needs to be made.

[Rebel Rose]

12 hours ago, kayb said:

We've also seen some success with community gardens. This is a commodity row-crop agricultural economy around here: cotton, corn, soybeans, rice, winter wheat. Many rural folk will at least have a kitchen garden and a few chickens, at least those who live out in the country. In town, churches and public schools have taken the lead in community garden programs.

 

All your points are spot on, kayb! I am particularly interested in hearing more about your experience with community gardens. I am trying to get a movement like that started here. I have just started a gleaning organization for this county (gleanme.org) and although I have volunteers signed up to pick I am having a devil of a time getting farmers and gardeners registered. The Garden Writers of America are supposed to have a 'Plant a Row' program but they haven't answered my email. (Note to self, pick up phone and call today.) How did your town get the concept of community gardens off the ground?

[chromedome]

 

6 hours ago, Lisa Shock said:

I am wondering why the purchase of beef is in that budget, when protein from beans would be a fraction of the cost, and not require refrigeration/freezing for long term storage? There would be other savings in converting to vegetable based proteins: no need for the red cutting boards, less worries about foodborne illness, less labor to process (trimming, slicing), fewer knives needed in the kitchen, and less grease to be processed as waste. -It's all probably due to some federal mandate voted in by congress under pressure from the beef lobby to provide 'high quality protein'.

Beans are certainly easier to store, but if they're going to be processed into ready-to-eat food there's still plenty of opportunity to get things wrong. If the food is to be stored and handed out as-is for people to prepare at home, it is (sadly) also true that many people have no idea how to cook dry beans. I've had that conversation many times at my cooking classes. 

 

A more important point is that the food bank isn't catering solely to vegetarians, and being herded involuntarily into something because it's "better for you" is the kind of thing that raises hackles, and rightly so. A friend of mine, who'd been in and out of the foster system throughout his childhood, bitterly defined "social worker" as: "The person who tells you to eat the yellow snow because it's got more trace minerals."

(Disclaimer: If any social workers happen to read this, please don't be upset. I've known several -- have a few in my family -- and have nothing but respect for the difficult job they do. This particular friend had been through all seven circles of hell with the ones who ran his childhood, and his opinion was, sadly, well earned.)

[Rebel Rose]

On 4/6/2017 at 0:26 AM, Lisa Shock said:

I am wondering why the purchase of beef is in that budget, when protein from beans would be a fraction of the cost, and not require refrigeration/freezing for long term storage? There would be other savings in converting to vegetable based proteins: no need for the red cutting boards, less worries about foodborne illness, less labor to process (trimming, slicing), fewer knives needed in the kitchen, and less grease to be processed as waste. -It's all probably due to some federal mandate voted in by congress under pressure from the beef lobby to provide 'high quality protein'.

 

Lisa, there are a LOT of beans served in soup kitchens. It's a cheap and plentiful staple. As chromedome points out, however, the hungry and homeless are not in a good place to sustain a vegetarian diet. These kitchens have a desperate need for meat products, and it's seldom donated. My brother has converted our family Christmas tree farm into a nonprofit food farm. He raises pork, beef and eggs for local soup kitchens and safe shelters. I'll have two large hunger gardens going this year, in addition to the farmhouse garden. Although some of the pork is cut up for bacon, most of the pork and beef is ground, as that's the form that is most versatile for recipe-stretching.

 

Aha! Note to self ... I'm creating a soup kitchen cookbook. What better place to get recipes than eGullet?!? I'll start a new thread for that project. Thank you for making me think of it.

Edited July 23, 2017 by Rebel Rose (log)

[MelissaH]

Not exactly a soup kitchen cookbook, but Leanne Brown's book Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day covers a lot of this. I'm not sure if the book was her master's thesis or if it grew out of the subject, but it's about how to stretch your food dollar to go as far as possible. The recipes look reasonable.

[kayb]

1 hour ago, Rebel Rose said:

 

All your points are spot on, kayb! I am particularly interested in hearing more about your experience with community gardens. I am trying to get a movement like that started here. I have just started a gleaning organization for this county (gleanme.org) and although I have volunteers signed up to pick I am having a devil of a time getting farmers and gardeners registered. The Garden Writers of America are supposed to have a 'Plant a Row' program but they haven't answered my email. (Note to self, pick up phone and call today.) How did your town get the concept of community gardens off the ground?

 

A sponsoring organization that will take on the garden and run with it is critical. In one town I'm familiar with, it grew out of the local Methodist church (we Methodists have a tendency toward feeding people). The church had managed to set up a homeless shelter (you don't think of homelessness in a town of 5,000, but it exists!), and then faced the issue of how to feed the people they housed. They got the city to give them use of some vacant lots it owned, and between church members, community volunteers and shelter residents, started the garden. A "produce stand" that dispenses the harvests, at no charge is operated by a couple of volunteers five days a week, two or three hours a day, and actually generates some money from people who use it as a regular farmers' market and pay for their vegetables. Excess goes to the food bank in a larger city 20 minutes away for disbursing as needed. 

 

I've seen it work with just community groups who get permission from the owner, or just take up squatters' rights in the case of some absentee landlords, and use a vacant lot in their neighborhood. And I've seen school groups who incorporate gardening into the curriculum as well as furnishing produce for the cafeteria as well as selling to the public/donating to the food bank.

 

I'll PM you some contact info for people with the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance who serve as resource people for community gardens and who work with restaurants and grocers and wholesalers on gleaning projects. You might pick their brains for some ideas.

[Rebel Rose]

Awesome! Thank you!

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

As an aside, does anyone remember M. F. K. Fisher's book written during WWII--How to Cook a Wolf? I still look through that book from time to time because (a) her writing is so amusing, and (b) there are some good ideas there. During the war people were dealing with rationing, not to mention meat being almost unaffordable for many families, and her ideas of doing a lot with a little are very interesting.

 

I doubt it would have any relevance to food kitchens and hunger relief, though. Just a remembrance of other times.

 

Nancy in Pátzcuaro

[Lisa Shock]

7 hours ago, Anna N said:

I don't think the idea that a vegetable-based diet carries less risk of food-borne illness holds up to scrutiny.  A minor point in the argument but one I think that needs to be made.

 

I was referring specifically to dry beans vs raw beef.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

13 hours ago, Lisa Shock said:

I am wondering why the purchase of beef is in that budget, when protein from beans would be a fraction of the cost, and not require refrigeration/freezing for long term storage? There would be other savings in converting to vegetable based proteins: no need for the red cutting boards, less worries about foodborne illness, less labor to process (trimming, slicing), fewer knives needed in the kitchen, and less grease to be processed as waste. -It's all probably due to some federal mandate voted in by congress under pressure from the beef lobby to provide 'high quality protein'.

 

It's true that beans are a relatively inexpensive source of protein and other nutrients, but like all plant foods, they lack Vitamin B12. Beef is a very good source of B12, and it's usually cheaper than other good sources of B12 like oysters, salmon, sardines and clams. While I love beans and eat a lot of them, many don't like them at all or would feel deprived without meat. Meat is a great morale booster for the majority in this culture. We undoubtedly, as a country, overindulge in meat, but many (and that includes me) think that some animal based food is necessary for adequate Vitamin B12 intake in the diet.

 

If the vegetarian diet includes dairy and eggs, they can get B12 there, but it is not as concentrated as the meat and fish products listed above. That is something to consider, too, I would think.

[Lisa Shock]

3 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

It's true that beans are a relatively inexpensive source of protein and other nutrients, but like all plant foods, they lack Vitamin B12. Beef is a very good source of B12, and it's usually cheaper than other good sources of B12 like oysters, salmon, sardines and clams. While I love beans and eat a lot of them, many don't like them at all or would feel deprived without meat. Meat is a great morale booster for the majority in this culture. We undoubtedly, as a country, overindulge in meat, but many (and that includes me) think that some animal based food is necessary for adequate Vitamin B12 intake in the diet.

 

If the vegetarian diet includes dairy and eggs, they can get B12 there, but it is not as concentrated as the meat and fish products listed above. That is something to consider, too, I would think.

 

Dairy is in the budget, so, I assumed it was being served.

 

B12 is a consideration, however, it is in many vitamin fortified foods such as cereal, and the aforementioned dairy. The NIH recommends that people over age 50 get the bulk of their B12 from fortified foods and vitamin supplements because it is more bioavailable to older patients in these forms than in meat.

 

I'd also like to note that chicken (which has a much lower environmental impact, and price, when compared to beef) is not listed either.

 

I still think that I'd rather feed three times as many people with beans than leaving large numbers of people hungry in order that a minority could have a couple tablespoons of ground beef in their pasta sauce.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

2 hours ago, Lisa Shock said:

 

Dairy is in the budget, so, I assumed it was being served.

 

B12 is a consideration, however, it is in many vitamin fortified foods such as cereal, and the aforementioned dairy. The NIH recommends that people over age 50 get the bulk of their B12 from fortified foods and vitamin supplements because it is more bioavailable to older patients in these forms than in meat.

 

I'd also like to note that chicken (which has a much lower environmental impact, and price, when compared to beef) is not listed either.

 

I still think that I'd rather feed three times as many people with beans than leaving large numbers of people hungry in order that a minority could have a couple tablespoons of ground beef in their pasta sauce.

 

I'm not trying at all to advocate feeding the poor with ribeyes and clams, because that is economically unfeasible and would be political suicide. All I'm trying to say is that B12 should be considered and can't be obtained from plant foods. 

 

Perhaps the B12 in fortified foods is tested for efficacy by the FDA, but that in supplements is not, like vitamin pills. There is movement to do that, but with focus of the current administration, it is very doubtful for the foreseeable future. I confess ignorance as to whether or not the claims of Vitamin content in processed fortified food products are FDA verified or not.

 

I also want to note that while chicken my have a much lower environmental impact, and be less expensive than beef, chicken has very little B12 in the meat, other than the organ meats, and even chicken eggs have more than the muscle meat. Even a single boiled egg has more B12 than can be found in a roasted thigh. Milk is not really a high source of B12, either, although it has more than twice as much in a cup as found in a chicken thigh.

 

The liver would be a hard sell for most people, but it is very nutrient dense, and some like it. It's also cheap. People who don't like liver seem to like Dirty Rice, though. It is mashed up chicken liver that makes the rice "dirty", and just an ounce of chicken liver provides 99% RDA of B12. I wonder if dirty rice would fly as a soup kitchen recipe?

 

I don't eat a lot of meat, so I watch my B12 intake. My late step mom was an ovo-lacto vegetarian, and she took periodical B12 injections at the behest of of her physician, so it has come up on my radar. I used to think chicken was fine to supply B12, but it is a weak source.

 

All that said, dried spaghetti, canned marinara sauce, canned veggies and fruits, dried beans and rice, that are the staples of our local food banks, sure beat the pants off going hungry! I can see where donors feel generous and wise about donating such things, but I have to say they don't really make a complete basis for proper nutrition. One cannot live by bread or even plant protein alone. Well, not for too long, anyway.

[suzilightning]

18 hours ago, Nancy in Pátzcuaro said:

As an aside, does anyone remember M. F. K. Fisher's book written during WWII--How to Cook a Wolf? I still look through that book from time to time because (a) her writing is so amusing, and (b) there are some good ideas there. During the war people were dealing with rationing, not to mention meat being almost unaffordable for many families, and her ideas of doing a lot with a little are very interesting.

 

I doubt it would have any relevance to food kitchens and hunger relief, though. Just a remembrance of other times.

 

Nancy in Pátzcuaro

I do remember that and, believe it or not, my grandfather actually used to eat one "meal" over the whole day and saw nothing wrong with it.  It was how he ate during the depression and during the war.......as long as you got some protein, vegetables and carbs spread out throughout the day he didn't care.  Course we were hunters and gatherers and raised a garden.

[MetsFan5]

This topic is a great, yet very sad read and shines a light on things I personally was unaware of. 

 

  So what can the average person do? I cook a few times a week and otherwise leave "dinner" for my husband and I to pick on whatever we feel like (Campbell's Chicken and Stars in my #1 comfort food) and or eat odds and ends. Most of my grocery stores ask for donations towards various local soup kitchen type organizations but I can't imagine my odd $15-20 a month really helps. 

 

    Any suggestions how to truly benefit those in need v. paying the exhorbinent salaries of some of the better known charities? What should people be doing to make a difference on a local level if possible? 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

33 minutes ago, MetsFan5 said:

This topic is a great, yet very sad read and shines a light on things I personally was unaware of. 

 

  So what can the average person do? I cook a few times a week and otherwise leave "dinner" for my husband and I to pick on whatever we feel like (Campbell's Chicken and Stars in my #1 comfort food) and or eat odds and ends. Most of my grocery stores ask for donations towards various local soup kitchen type organizations but I can't imagine my odd $15-20 a month really helps. 

 

    Any suggestions how to truly benefit those in need v. paying the exhorbinent salaries of some of the better known charities? What should people be doing to make a difference on a local level if possible? 

 

I have no magic answer to your question, here, MetsFan5. As an employee of a couple of non-profit organizations for sixteen years, I can only say that the people who do the accounting (me), or information technology (me), or the many other functions of the larger organizations have to make a living and pay bills too. I noticed at the end of my career with the YMCA that the executive salaries had quadrupled, and was taken quite aback by this. What can one do? that is the trend nowadays to concentrate wealth. I was not supposed to even know this, but do you really think that someone with carte blanche on the computer system is not going to indulge their curiosity? You just can't let on about it as an employee, you know, straight face and all, while you are being exploited?

 

Believe me, though that the worker bees, like I was, in non-profits are very far from overcompensated. 

 

Everyone is afraid to give money to "beggars" or the homeless, but that does cut out the middle man. So maybe they might spend some on alcohol. Well who would not want a frickin' drink, given their circumstances?

 

The government demands so much of non-profits, too. They are required to have an outside audit by a public accounting firm every year to verify that they are in compliance with their 501C tax exemption status. This is not cheap, either for the fees of the CPA firm or for the grunts like me, who have to use a lot of time and resources to give them things they had already been given that they lost.   The first time this happened, I started generating a list of all the materials and information I had supplied them and had their rep sign for it. *Sigh* It did work, though. The disappearing reports thing never happened again. I don't think it especially endeared me to them, but hey, I'm not an especially endearing person, it seems. BTW the CPA audit billing dwarfed any compensation I received. I can say, that YMCA and Eastern Star were above board as far as the law goes. Complying with the law is expensive, though, very.

 

Perhaps @Rebel Rosehas better advice about how to help without having your contributions disappear into overhead and executive compensation. She? seems to be doing a good job of this.

[Lisa Shock]

I belong to a FaceBook group of suburban gardeners who meet a couple times a month to trade excess produce and other garden related items. It's very loosely organized. You just show up, put stuff out on the tables, and then walk around and look at other people's stuff and take what you want. No real concern about value. Never any talk about money. Lots of talk about gardening and pickling and such. Lots of recycling of canning jars. We also often do a small potluck lunch, since we were usually snacking anyway...

 

I can't help but think that for some people, a food swap could be a good thing. I know that some farmers have contracts which forbid them from giving/selling their crop (milk in particular) to anyone but the processor (dairy) they contract with. Even then, most farmers I know do have small gardens and occasionally excesses of some items. I mean, if one person has too much zucchini, and someone else has 3 pear trees, and another person has too many grapes, having a central place to meet and donate/take extra food might be useful. Honestly, in some cases, I'm sure that people could just leave bags of extra food out by their mailbox (maybe in a wooden chest to discourage wild animals) for anyone to help themselves to. I understand that rural living means more difficulty in finding people to participate in groups, but social media could be very useful.

 

I also belong to a fairly well organized not-for-profit that gathers volunteers who own ladders to pick fruit (mostly citrus here) from trees in people's yards where it's just too much for them. The volunteers get to take some home, but the bulk of a day's work goes to local food banks. (we try to spread it around, most food banks don't need 400lbs of lemons all in one day)

 

I guess I am lucky to know people who play well together. Both groups have been around for a few years and none has succumbed to petty dictators or anything. Maybe it's the whole thing about not dealing with money that keeps some greedy types away, I dunno. But, I suspect that a lot of the problems with hunger involve distribution and logistics, not an actual shortage of food. Maybe they need to think about community food swaps instead of farmer's markets.

[cakewalk]

2 hours ago, Lisa Shock said:

I suspect that a lot of the problems with hunger involve distribution and logistics, not an actual shortage of food.

Bingo. To a degree I think this is also part of the rural/urban difference. Many pantries in New York City have said that their shelves are now emptier than they have been in a long time, a reflection not of a distribution problem but of the fact that more people are having hard times, and there are more takers and fewer givers. People who have never needed a food pantry before find themselves suddenly in need. 

[helenjp]

Yes, distribution. The best thing I got out of belonging to an organic food co-op was the chance to host farmers for the annual conference. It was REALLY interesting - for them, as they said they rarely had the chance to spend reasonable time talking to other farmers with similar goals, and for us, because we got to hear exactly where the shoe pinches.

Restrictions set my major buyers seem, to me, to be too punitive for rural producers, who are already isolated and disadvantaged in their access to markets.

As people move off farms, the ability to produce secondary streams of income must have become more difficult, so we need new alternatives. Maybe townies need to take their tech, educational, hospitality and other skills to rural areas rather than send soup? It's not just tech handouts, either - the more time that urban and suburban people spend with food production workers, the more those people and their families will see rural work as something they could do too, and do profitably.

[Rebel Rose]

6 hours ago, Lisa Shock said:

I belong to a FaceBook group of suburban gardeners who meet a couple times a month to trade excess produce and other garden related items. It's very loosely organized. You just show up, put stuff out on the tables, and then walk around and look at other people's stuff and take what you want. No real concern about value. Never any talk about money. Lots of talk about gardening and pickling and such. Lots of recycling of canning jars. We also often do a small potluck lunch, since we were usually snacking anyway...

 

This is a great idea! We used to do a Freecycle Day twice a year in my Tucson cohousing when I lived there, for unwanted items that people couldn't bear to throw away. Bring stuff, take stuff, everyone leaves happy, and the remainders were taken to a small Mexican village over the border. I think a garden swap day would be magical, since this is exactly the kind of thing gardeners love to do! I have just asked our local Master Gardeners if they would organize an event like this. If not, I'll do it myself and host it here on the farm. I have #littleredhen syndrome. But I have found that if you do something once, and it's successful, it's pretty easy to hand it off to someone else the following year.

[Rebel Rose]

On 4/6/2017 at 6:18 PM, Lisa Shock said:

 

Dairy is in the budget, so, I assumed it was being served.

 

I'd also like to note that chicken (which has a much lower environmental impact, and price, when compared to beef) is not listed either.

 

I still think that I'd rather feed three times as many people with beans than leaving large numbers of people hungry in order that a minority could have a couple tablespoons of ground beef in their pasta sauce.

 

Chicken is often donated--it's cheap and plentiful, so I'm not surprised that there's no supplemental cash item for it. Dairy is more perishable, but right now dairy producers and processors have huge surpluses, so also not surprising that the cash line item is low for 2016. Now beef, on the other hand ...

 

It can be much cheaper to buy beef "on the hoof". Meaning, if you bid for it as futures, you're essentially pledging to buy beeves that will be butchered 6-8 months from now and it will cost a fraction of the retail per-pound price. I am guessing this is what that line item is for. Also, if they got a grant or large donation from, say, the Cattlemen's Association, that may be how they choose to designate it. But I was struck by how low this line item is for a nonprofit that claims to feed 811,399 people a year. Let's assume only 25% of those people were at shelters and meal programs, that's still 202,850 people. Therefore, $5,800 is a line budget that provides only $0.028 (less than 3 cents) per person per year for beef. For an item that is almost NEVER donated, that is a pretty pitiful commitment.

 

 

At 3 cents per person per year, I don't think there's any danger of beef taking over beans and macaroni in the menu any time soon.

Edited April 8, 2017 by Rebel Rose (log)

[Rebel Rose]

9 hours ago, MetsFan5 said:

 So what can the average person do? I cook a few times a week and otherwise leave "dinner" for my husband and I to pick on whatever we feel like (Campbell's Chicken and Stars in my #1 comfort food) and or eat odds and ends. Most of my grocery stores ask for donations towards various local soup kitchen type organizations but I can't imagine my odd $15-20 a month really helps.

 

I suggest "adopting" a center, family or person. Deliver your donations in person--that way, you are assured that 100% of your gift goes to them. Although my gleaning organization will benefit multiple centers, I've personally adopted a Section 8 housing complex across from my childhood middle school. I met them after one of the residents wrote to me after seeing an article in the local newspaper. They are all seniors, and many of them raised their own families on farms with gardens, but now are widowed and living in reduced circumstances on very limited budgets. One of my three gardens is earmarked specifically for them, but I also bring them eggs from my brother's hens and boxes of produce from gleans. They get so excited when I email or text ahead that I'm bringing something. They pool recipes and take care of distributing the bounty. They told me that just knowing someone cared really raised morale in the complex. Since then, they have formed a "gardening committee" and the local Methodist Church showed up with cedar planks, tools and 40 cu.ft. of new potting soil to build them some raised beds--3 feet high, in fact, so they don't have to stoop!

 

Whenever I get discouraged about the uphill row I've got building this organization from scratch, I just think about "my ladies" (there are gents too, but the ladies are the excitable ones) and it makes me smile to know how much they look forward to these deliveries.

 

Last year I asked some friends to make commitments to donate garden bounty to a chosen local site. I would love to see something like this on eGullet. April is the perfect month to do this, when people are planning and planting their gardens.

 

To initially search for hunger non-profits in your area, try using search terms like food bank, homeless shelter, women’s shelter, soup kitchen, and table ministry. Keep in mind that large food banks probably receive truckloads of fresh produce from large distributors like Feeding America. But smaller non-profits like shelters and table ministries often have a huge need for fresh produce, eggs and meat! (Some cannot accept garden produce due to health department restrictions, but I have not found that to be common.)

 

Once you have a list of potential sites, you should call and/or email with these questions:

• Will you take donations of fresh produce from gardeners?
• What is your level of need—is it occasional, ongoing or urgent?
• Do you have special needs at certain times of the year, like holidays?
• Is there any particular type of vegetable or fruit you need?
• Are there certain days and times that you are open to receive produce?
• What address should we use for deliveries of food?

Don't overlook people right in your neighborhood, like housebound seniors, or senior living centers. If you love to cook, just taking over some homemade stews and lasagna would be a huge gift.