What happens to fruits and vegetables that don’t get sold at the farmers market? Through our farmers market food recovery program, it gets a second chance to feed our neighbors across Rhode Island.
At three different summer farmers markets in Providence, our Hope’s Harvest staff and volunteers collect, weigh, and sort unsold produce donations from farmers, and then deliver it to food pantries across the state.
In today’s front page story in the Providence Journal, Breanne Penkala, Hope’s Harvest Operations Manager, sits down with Wheeler Cooperthwaite to discuss how this program has helped us reach smaller food pantries to feed even more Rhode Islanders in need:
“The farmers market gleans are especially nice for food pantries, as they usually mean a wide variety of produce, by the pound, which is easier to distribute to a few pantries, compared with hundreds of pounds of a single crop, which often need to be distributed over more sites.
‘It has allowed us to reach different types of food pantries, because the smaller food pantries for instance don’t want 500 pounds of corn and one delivery, but they could use 500 pounds of mixed produce’ Penkala said.”
This year alone, we’ve rescued and delivered 1,400 pounds of produce from the Armory Park Farmers Market and 3,000 pounds at the Hope Street Farmers Market—with even more expected before the summer season wraps up! Read the full story here.
Ready to join us in the fields or at the farmers market? Sign up to volunteer!
