The guide was developed through a partnership between Rotary First Harvest – a program of Rotary District 5030 (RFH), the Corporation for National and Community Service, AmeriCorps*VISTA and several local food bank organizations.
RFH has committed to using our unique position in the hunger relief network to identify gaps within the overall hunger response system and develop strategies to fill those gaps. RFH’s core work of providing 40,000 pound truckloads of single produce items is efficient and effective, but doesn’t typically capture small donation amounts that are available from thousands of small farms statewide.
In 2009, RFH created the Harvest Against Hunger (HAH) program to build localized models to gather excess produce from smaller farm operations, home gardeners and other sources that operate at a more local scale. HAH has been instrumental in developing viable and effective gleaning and produce outreach models to smaller communities, bringing a total of nearly one million additional pounds of produce into our hunger relief system.
Last year, RFH sponsored and coordinated 8 AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers who were placed in small community food banks throughout Washington State. Each volunteer produced a document detailing their individual program. These reports were compiled into The Gleaner’s Resource Guide.
Thanks to the unprecedented success of the HAH program, RFH will expand the number of Harvest VISTA volunteers to 10, who begin their year of service in November 2010. HAH sites will include South King County Food Coalition - Des Moines, Lettuce Link Community Fruit Tree Harvest - Seattle, Lettuce Link Farm - Seattle, Second Harvest Inland NW (SHIN) - Tri Cities, Thurston County Food Bank - Olympia, Okanogan Co. Community Action Council - Okanogan, Emergency Food Network - Tacoma, SHIN – Spokane and Skagit CAP – Mt Vernon.
RFH has committed to using our unique position in the hunger relief network to identify gaps within the overall hunger response system and develop strategies to fill those gaps. RFH’s core work of providing 40,000 pound truckloads of single produce items is efficient and effective, but doesn’t typically capture small donation amounts that are available from thousands of small farms statewide.
In 2009, RFH created the Harvest Against Hunger (HAH) program to build localized models to gather excess produce from smaller farm operations, home gardeners and other sources that operate at a more local scale. HAH has been instrumental in developing viable and effective gleaning and produce outreach models to smaller communities, bringing a total of nearly one million additional pounds of produce into our hunger relief system.
Last year, RFH sponsored and coordinated 8 AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers who were placed in small community food banks throughout Washington State. Each volunteer produced a document detailing their individual program. These reports were compiled into The Gleaner’s Resource Guide.
Thanks to the unprecedented success of the HAH program, RFH will expand the number of Harvest VISTA volunteers to 10, who begin their year of service in November 2010. HAH sites will include South King County Food Coalition - Des Moines, Lettuce Link Community Fruit Tree Harvest - Seattle, Lettuce Link Farm - Seattle, Second Harvest Inland NW (SHIN) - Tri Cities, Thurston County Food Bank - Olympia, Okanogan Co. Community Action Council - Okanogan, Emergency Food Network - Tacoma, SHIN – Spokane and Skagit CAP – Mt Vernon.
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