Food Bank Growers
Project: Ten gardens, one orchard, and a gleaning network
Request: $5,000
$500 keeps a garden growing for a year.
Food Bank Growers is a volunteer network that grows food in ten small gardens and one orchard, gleans backyard orchards and farms, and gives every pound of it away — to the Jefferson County Food Bank Association and more than 30 other nonprofits that need fresh food.
Last year that came to over 40,000 pounds of produce. At an average organic price of $3 a pound, roughly $120,000 of food, produced and distributed by people who aren't paid.
This is one of the smallest asks in the campaign, and it's small because the model is so lean. Each of the ten gardens needs about $500 a year for the unglamorous essentials: water, soil, seeds, patching greenhouses, irrigation repairs, new plastic, mesh covers, tools. Volunteers handle the finances, the administration, the communications, the outreach and the growing.
This year, two donated greenhouses are going up at the FairWinds site and will need site preparation and new plastic coverings, which the same per-garden funding will help cover. New greenhouses mean early and late season crops; fresh food in the months when there's least of it.
Why fresh matters more than it sounds
The Food Bank Association now serves approximately 4,000 households a month across Port Townsend, Tri-Area, Quilcene, Brinnon and Coyle. Food banks have come to depend on Food Bank Growers' production each year, and patrons notice: produce that isn't old, dried or wilted, unlike much of what arrives as surplus.
For people whose food budget has no give in it, the difference between wilted and fresh is the difference between food you endure and food you look forward to.
The school connection
Food Bank Growers began in 2012 working with the Port Townsend School District High School, and grew to include the Blue Heron Orchard and the Salish Coast Production garden. Those three gardens help feed the 1,180 students in a district where 51.2% of families are low income, and they teach the next generation how to grow their own food.
Gleaners turn surplus apples into applesauce that goes into winter school meals, which smooths out a real seasonal problem: fresh food is abundant in summer, exactly when school is out.
This fall, the group is launching a pilot for field gleaning from local farms, with all produce collected going to the schools.
Here are the problems you can help solve
Food Bank Growers tells us about two challenges they are facing. First, they can't grow their way out of the county's need — and if they tried, they'd cut into local farms' income. What they can do is model it: show neighborhoods how to start a community garden, encourage backyard growers to send their excess to the food bank, and teach people to cook and enjoy fresh food so the money they save might go to buying local.
Second, the volunteers are aging. The group needs to bring 20-to-40-year-olds and their kids into the gardens (as volunteers first, and maybe as growers with their own plots later). They'd rather spend your donation on growing than on advertising, and let word of mouth do the rest.
What your donation makes possible
Predictable base funding means Food Bank Growers can plan, keep producing at current levels, and get two greenhouses rebuilt. Roughly 15% of their annual revenue comes from Give Jefferson.
Forty thousand pounds of food, given away, for the cost of water and seeds and a lot of people's Saturdays. Your gift keeps it going.
