Gleaning Greens

Working faster than the mosquitoes could bite, in two quick mornings 4 volunteers helped to glean 84 pounds of salad mix from 8th Street Greens. That is enough greens to for 42 people to have a (2oz) fresh crisp dinner salad! Thank you Voluneers and 8th Street Greens.
OCCAC garden in full swing as well. Beans, sweet peas and peppers have all begun to be harvested. And we had our first slicer tomato donated this past Monday! A new planting of arugula, red stock celery and more radishes have just been rotated into an empty spot, promising a spicy variety of greens to come. This season the garden has already produced 124 pounds of vegetables compared to a total of 665 pounds in 2009 for the whole season. At this rate we are sure to have a record harvest!!

Our P.L.A.N.T. grant has started!

We want to announce the start of our new P.L.A.N.T. grant! (It stands for People Learning Agriculture and Nutrition Together) Over the winter, we partnered up with our local WIC agency and the Okanogan Farmers Market and applied for a grant that was being awarded by the Department of Health and the University of Washington. This grant aims to help WIC clients increase their fruit and vegetable consumption by creating partnerships within the community. Well, needless to say we got the grant!
What this means for Food For All is that we're getting more support to expand our gleaning and gardening efforts. Next season we will be building gardens in the backyard of WIC families that would like to start gardening. We're also going to be distributing gardening information throughout the community and will be offering some gardening workshops at the Farmers Market.
Right now we need gleaners and leaders that would like to take on both gleaning and gardening aspects of the program. Also, if you are a WIC family that would like to line up for a garden next year please let us know!

The project officially started on July 1st. It's time to get rolling so don't hesitate to contact us if you would like to help!

Cherry Gleaning has Started!

These past two weeks we have been gleaning bing cherries from DeLap farms. Over two days, and with the help of 9 volunteers, we brought 551 lbs of cherries into the food bank. I have a feeling we're just getting started with cherries this season!