It is becoming increasingly clear that Meadowwood Garden has the capacity to grow substantially more food than one person (or even a small neighborhood) can use. Probably most of this can be chalked up to the lack of knowledge of yields of the various vegetable varieties that were planted. Just tonight 130 ‘Eureka’ yellow beans were picked from 2 bean plants (an insane 65 beans/plant average — and there are still about 40 more plants in the ground to harvest from yet)!
The overabundance of food shouldn’t surprise anyone who has read about my attempts to pawn off excess zucchini to anyone and everyone. Friends, family and even total strangers have been the beneficiaries of the largess of the garden. But as the growing season has progressed it seems like everyone has extra garden produce to give away, so options became severely limited very quickly.
So in the back of my mind for the past couple weeks has been to look into a way to donate the excess harvest. It seemed like the perfect solution — find a local charity and give them any extra so nothing goes to waste. A nice win-win for myself and the charity.
So today some preliminary research was done and the results are mixed. Feeding America (Formerly America’s Second Harvest) seems to be the largest charity of this type. There are also many smaller food banks or food pantries that are much more local to Meadowwood Garden. After a bit of searching a local Community Action Agency was found that might do the trick. They seem to refer people to these food pantries so I’m going to get in touch with them to see what their needs are.
What is frustrating me — and the reason I am writing this — is that just to find out who to get in touch with has been a pain. There is also the question about whether they will even accept fresh produce donations. Yes, it sounds silly, but most of the food pantry need lists seemed to be more focused on canned or packaged goods.
Why does donating fresh vegetables to people in need have to be so difficult? I’m shocked that in this day and age every community doesn’t have a place you can just drive up and drop off excess produce or packaged items. There are recycle bins and trailers seemingly everywhere. There are drop-off places for trash and for hazardous chemicals and electronics. Just about every community around here has a Goodwill or a Salvation Army drop off point for clothes and household items. But where does one go to drop off food — especially fresh vegetables from the garden?!?
Am I just missing something? Is there some obvious solution that I’m just not seeing?
Feeding America comes the closest to having a nationwide index of food banks. At the bottom of their homepage you can enter a zip code and find the nearest affiliated regional food bank. My guess is that these regional food banks distribute to the local ones in the surrounding area. So if you are close to one of these regional food banks it is a great place to start.
Meadowwood Garden is not close to one though. Considering the amount of produce that will be donated on an occasional basis it makes much more sense to donate direct to a local food bank. And, of course, finding the local food bank information is what has been a hassle…
If anyone knows of a comprehensive listing of local food donation points that exists somewhere on the Internet please leave a comment and let me know about it. Until then I’m going to contact every food pantry, food bank and assistance organization in my county until I find a local charity that can make good use of all this excess garden harvest.
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I recently talked with my cousin in Lancaster, she said the Luthern Church will take your donations of veggies. Hope this works for you.
@ Nina — Thank you for looking into this.