There are several community gardens in northeast Washington. The two largest are in Colville and Kettle Falls, which are both towns with very active food pantries open four days a week. The community garden in Colville is owned and operated by a local church. This year they saw a continuing decrease in the number of individuals renting gardening plots..
The Plant a Row for the Hungry (PAR) program encourages community members to dedicate a row (or more) of fruit, vegetables and/or herbs in their garden to help feed those in need. PAR was spearheaded by Jeff Lowenfels, a garden writer for the Anchorage Daily News and former Garden Writers Association (GWA) president. The idea was implemented as a national program by the GWA soon after..
There are many home gardeners in the greater Moses Lake area and asking them to help feed their neighbors was easier after receiving seed donations. A few letters to seed companies yielded 220 pounds of garden seeds from across the nation. Two-thirds of these seeds were distributed to food bank clients..
The space and inputs barrier can be lowered through the creation of a community garden where the cost of land and inputs can be spread across all participants. Time and motivation can become huge barriers in the height of the summer, but can be overcome by connecting your volunteer/donor with the recipients of their hard work and other ways of acknowledging their hard work..
Plant starts and seed donations are a great way to get more fresh veggies into the hands of the folks who need them. This simultaneously empowers people and provides an opportunity for giving back – it is the gift that keeps giving!
Grow a Row is an international initiative that works to get backyard gardeners involved in donating freshly grown produce directly to their local food bank. We encouraged local gardeners to participate in the Grow a Row program as it has participants only commit a single row or container plant to be donated to the food bank..
There are two key components to a working gleaning program: interested farmers and committed volunteers. Without dedicated farmers and volunteers, there would be no food to glean and no one to help harvest it..
Most farms in the Boulder and Broomfield area are smaller, producing on 10 acres or less. With their smaller operation size, they also have smaller staff sizes. These farms find it difficult to donate as they do not have the means to deliver the produce they have after markets or when they have excess..
Teaching healthy eating to our clients promotes nutrition as well as knowing where our food comes from. Encouraging community members to make their own food and learn new skills gives them the opportunity to take control of their health and wellbeing. The year two VISTA was able to work with cooking and nutrition through the “demo kit” project. There were community members and clients of the CAC who came into the community kitchen at the CAC to test their recipes and teach them to other community members during food bank distribution in the same building..
The gardens at the Koppel Community Garden in Pullman and at the CAC office building can be used to teach clients about how to grow their own food which promotes self-sufficiency. The gardens are also a great place to host large groups of volunteers for work days during the summer. From the Community Educator program, the director of the Community Food department wanted to take the information presented in the cooking and gardening demos and create “demo kits”..