Vegetable Gardeners Can Help End Hunger with Food Donations

Vegetable gardeners and farmers know that all the planning in the world will not help predict the size of the harvest. Despite all plans, some plants will fail to produce when others supply a bumper crop. Producing more food than one family can eat results in creative recipes, generous giveaways and sometimes, waste. It doesn’t have to be that way when vegetable gardeners can donate the extra food to food pantries and food banks. Here are three ways to feed the hungry and help end hunger by using the perishable items gardeners produce.

From Kitchen Garden to Food Pantries

When a gardener has a mountain of squash or tomatoes on his hands, he needs to find a community food bank or church food pantry immediately before the food perishes. AmpleHarvest.org is a tremendous resource for those who want to make food donations of fresh vegetables. The organization’s goal is to compile a comprehensive list of food pantries and food banks that accept fresh items.

‚”Millions of American homeowners grow more food in their backyard gardens than they can possibly use,” according to the AmpleHarvest.org website. ‚”The AmpleHarvest.org Campaign diminishes hunger in America by helping backyard gardeners share their excess garden produce with neighborhood food pantries.” As of May 2010, AmpleHarvest.org had 1,730 food pantries in its database, and the campaign is always seeking more food banks and food pantries to add to the list.

The way AmpleHarvest.org works is very simple. When a gardener has too much produce, he can go to the website, enter his zip code and see a listing of local food pantries that accept perishable items. The listings include a street address and phone number and often include days and hours when food donations are accepted. There are no requirements for the size of the donation or frequency. If gardeners know of other local food pantries not on the list, they can print out a registration form to give to the staff or the local director can register online to keep the database growing. There is no charge to have a food pantry included in the AmpleHarvest.org database.

AmpleHarvest.org can be used by the wider community as well as gardeners with a bumper crop. Since the food pantries are able to update their information, they can alert the public to their current needs of non-perishable items.

Plant a Row to Feed the Children

While AmpleHarvest.org is a great resource for gardeners in ‚”crisis mode,” gardeners who like to plan ahead can donate a portion of their yield with the national Plant A Row for the Hungry campaign. There are three ways to be involved: it can be an individual effort, the gardener can start a new local campaign with others or he can join an existing campaign.

Plant A Row for the Hungry is a public service program of the Garden Writers Association (GWA) and the GWA Foundation. Plant A Row provides resources for those who want to launch their own local campaigns, including directions on organization and publicity. Vegetables gardeners who join an existing campaign commit to growing extra food for a local food bank or food pantry. The local campaigns partner with area food banks to ensure the food donations can be distributed quickly.

There are currently more than 200 local campaigns across the United States, including one in Kansas City, Mo., that supports the Harvesters community food bank. Last year the local Plant a Row program donated 13,136 pounds of food to Harvesters, reported Debra Skodack in the May 1, 2010, Kansas City Star article, ‚”Harley workers garden and help the hungry.” The local effort includes a three-quarter-acre garden on previously unused land at a Harley-Davidson Inc. plant in Northland, Mo.

The idea was conceived by TJ Dixon, who works for Harley-Davidson and owns a 17-acre organic farm in Gower, Mo. ‚”I was just lying awake one morning in bed thinking about what I could do to go beyond,” Dixon told Skodack. ‚”I was trying to think of new ways to do something and it just hit me ‚Äî we have 340 acres at the plant and we are only using a little piece of it.”

Help Grow Garden Vegetables and End Hunger

The garden at the Harley-Davidson plant is similar to a third option for gardeners and for farmers who want to help end hunger. This option includes donating time, labor and knowledge or land for use for community gardens. A community garden can be a cooperative effort to grow garden vegetables for participants and a partnership with a community food pantry to feed the hungry. Farmers can donate a portion of their land for a community garden or allow volunteers to glean what is left by mechanized harvesters.

One example of a successful community garden and gleaning effort is America’s Grow-a-Row based in New Jersey. This grassroots organization coordinates volunteer efforts to cultivate crops on a portion of the Peaceful Valley Orchards host farm. Groups of volunteers sign up to work the land: planting, weeding, harvesting, gleaning and delivery food to the food pantries. According to America’s Grow-a-Row website, 317,000 pounds of fresh produce were donated in 2009 to feed the hungry through the group’s efforts.

Feeding the hungry can be a community effort through local gardening and gleaning efforts. Individual gardeners with excess vegetables and fruits can use the AmpleHarvest.org database to identify food pantries that accept perishable garden items. Joining forces with other gardeners for the national Plant a Row for the Hungry effort can result in hundreds of thousands of pounds in food donations for community food banks. Even grassroots efforts can successfully produce food for the hungry and glean existing farmland to help end hunger.