Plant a Row

[Ginger]

In a newsletter I receive each month that is published by the Electric Coops in Oklahoma there was an article about planting a row of vegetables for the homeless shelters and/or food banks. This was started a few years ago in another part of the US but seems to be catching on all over. Fresh veggies are something they don't get very often. I think it is a wonderful idea, and since my DH planted about 8 tomato plants and there are only two of us, I plan to take lots of tomatoes to our local shelter this year. Do any of your cities/counties have the same type of program?

Ginger

[caliloo]

We have Philabundance here in the Philadelphia area and they get literally TONS of food from all sorts of sources. I was talking with my neighbor a fwe days ago (he is the director of a shelter for men in North Philadelphia) and he was saying it is amazing what is donated. 2 weeks ago they got 55,000 lbs of bananas and every homeless shelter in Philly was scrambling to distribute the bananas and make banana bread from the leftovers before they spoiled. A week ago or so they ended up with 75 pallets of Frappucino from a mistaken delivery to a local market. I sort of giggle when I think about every homeless guy in north Philly running around with a couple of cans of very pricey Starbucks coffee!

I think what you are doing is a wonderful effort and I wish you the best!

Alexa

http://www.philabundance.org/

[newtohosta-no more]

Yep...I've heard of that in my area too! It's a wonderful idea. Who doesn't like fresh fruit or fresh veggies?

[JaneG]

I know of a women's shelter that takes garden produce. They preserve some of it and use it in the meals they fix, and they also add garden produce to the weekly grocery bags they give away.

[kHT]

We ahve been doing this for over 10 years now and when we don't get any takers from the shelters as we grow so much, we list these on CL
for needy families. Sometimes we allow them to pick if we don't get the harvesting done first. You wouldn't believe all the families in need.
Matter of fact we have doubled our tomato planting to feed more!