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WSU Clallam County Extension

WSU Extension builds the capacity of individuals, organizations businesses, and communities, empowering them to find solutions for local issues and to improve their quality of life. The 39 Extension locations throughout the state of Washington offer researched based resources and volunteer programming to communities in efforts to create a culture of life-long learning and is recognized for its accessible, learner-centered, relevant, high-quality, unbiased education programs. This operation comes from the Cooperative Extension service, which was established and funded as a national program by the Smith-Lever Act of 1914.

The Clallam County Extension, located in Port Angeles, is home to many programs that connect the people and communities of Clallam County with the knowledge base of Washington State University. These programs include: Master Gardeners, 4-H, Regional Small Farms, Waste Reduction, Community Health and Food Access, Water and Natural Resources, and Gleaning. The Gleaning Program, a result of Harvest Against Hunger’s AmeriCorps VISTA partnership, has grown tremendously, and now has over 300 volunteers who glean from homes, farms, community gardens and farmers markets. A new cycle of HAH VISTA’s is beginning to build off these successes by creating a series of Community Food Projects to further increase foodaccess and prevent edible food waste. To accommodate the excess of gleaned produce from food banks without adequate storage and distribution capacity, a glean-processing program will capture gleaned (and other perishable) foods from food relief agencies for minimal processing into more shelf-stable goods. To address the shortage of nutritious, accessible and regular hot meals available to food-insecure community members, a community meal program will work with existing meal programs to fill the gaps with zero-barrier healthy meals for all people. These Community Food Projects will address the current inefficiencies in the gleaning program as well as within food banking agencies to prevent food waste, create healthy and desirable food items for those in need, and expand access to local, culturally-appropriate and nutritious foods for Clallam residents while creating replicable systems for broader application.