NKU Press Release, 7 December 2012

Here's a nice little press release about Harvest Stewards and the work we did last Summer with a group of community gardens around NKU. Many thanks to Maggie Gough for writing this!

Community Gardeners Share Bountythrough Partnership with Harvest Stewards
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – The Northern Kentucky Community Gardens has partnered with the newly established local nonprofit Harvest Stewards, LLC, to get produce into local food pantries. Each week Shan Bentz, director of Harvest Stewards, sets out and collects a bin at each garden site for gardeners to voluntarily share any excess vegetables they might have.

During the first growing season with the partnership in place, Harvest Stewards collected over 115 pounds of produce. The food that Harvest Stewards collected has gone to Action Ministries, Fairhaven Rescue Mission and Be Concerned.

“Most gardeners reach a point where they have more tomatoes or zucchinis than they know what to do with and we are glad to have provided them with a meaningful place to send such nutritious food,” said Rachel Wirrig, a gardener and member of the Northern Kentucky Community Garden Committee and associate pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church.

Bentz said the new partnership helps spread the Harvest Stewards narrative of “growing a little, giving a little.” He said it is not only the recipients of the produce who benefit through this type of program; it also helps create a greater sense of community, interdependence and responsibility for the care of others.

The Northern Kentucky Community Gardens will continue to partner with Harvest Stewards and Wirrig encourages other community garden sites to do so as well. “All we had to do was agree to let [Harvest Stewards] place the bins and let the gardeners know the option to share was available. Shan did the rest. It was so easy,” she said.

Harvest Stewards, LLC is working toward becoming a 501c3 charitable giving organization and Bentz said the organization hopes to expand its garden partnerships.

A different take on “junk food”

What a clever idea! I just finished reading a short piece in The Economist about a program in Mexico City that allows residents to “barter” their recyclables for fresh produce. I am seriously considering how Harvest Stewards might incorporate such an element of exchange in our food ministry. It seems like a great idea. Just to be clear, there's virtually no way at all that the market prices for recyclable materials could cover the cost of the foods delivered. But right now we're just giving them away anyway, so it certainly couldn't cost more.

100+

Here we are at the end of the growing season. It's been a good one, and I am grateful to the many community gardeners who have so generously donated from their gardens to the cause of feeding hungry folks. This year we grew, collected and donated over one hundred pounds of fresh produce. Those squash I mentioned in the previous post: they weighed in at around nine pounds, so we're now at 108.5 pounds for the year.

Late season update

In the last few weeks we've taken in and delivered quite a handy load of fresh vegetables (well fruits really, if you want to be perfectly accurate). One of our Northern Kentucky Community Gardeners, Terri Turner, generously ceded her plot for Harvest Stewards to glean a couple of weeks ago. “There may be a few tomatoes there, so take whatever you can find”, she told me in an email. In fact, there was well over 8 pounds of premium quality romas, yellow pears, beefsteaks and cherries to be had! Thanks so much, Terri! The folks at Be Concerned were so pleased to get them. With collections like that, plus some late-season harvest from the LBC Garden, our season total is just shy of 100 pounds! (99.52, to be precise.) I know we'll break the hundred pound mark, because there are at least two or three healthy butternut squash that will be donated once they ripen. Many thanks to all the gardeners who have so thoughtfully dropped a little bit here and a little bit there to help us feed hungry folks!

A great haul

The Northern KY Community Gardeners have really been great.  This morning I collected and delivered over fifteen pounds of produce -beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, melons and peppers- from the donation baskets at the gardens!  So far we're a few ounces shy of fifty pounds of donated produce this year.  I'm looking forward to passing along another fifty or so pounds by the end of the season.  This morning's produce went to the Fairhaven Rescue Mission in Covington.

Update, 25 July 2012

How exciting it is to have the cooperation of Northern Kentucky gardeners!  There is, in Highland Heights, a small cluster of 3 community gardens.  We have begun collecting their donations of produce.  Just this morning, in fact, I collected a nice 5lb. box of tomatoes.  It was a real joy to deliver these to our newest partner, Be Concerned, in Covington, KY.  It's a great operation:

More than 1200 families each month ease financial hardship by shopping at Be Concerned. Through our food program, groceries and toiletries are distributed weekly to low-income families at no charge. Customers shop on a rotating basis by scheduled appointments. Individual selection of goods are important aspects of the program.

Exactly the sort of thing Harvest Stewards is aimed at helping!  

On consumer choice, food deserts and variability

The matter of obesity and "food deserts" is an interesting one.  You may well have heard about the link between obesity and food deserts; you may also have heard more recently that the link between obesity and food deserts is specious.  Hard to say what the truth really is- I suspect somewhere in the middle.  The heart of the matter is indeed consumer choice, but it isn't as simple as just that.  Why would folks choose to eat fast food to the exclusion of healthier fare, all other things being equal?  I am certain that it comes down to variability: there is very little variability in the quality and taste of what one will eat at a McDonald's in Cincinnati and one in, say, Phoenix.  There is, however, a great deal of variability in the quality and taste of good healthy produce commonly available in those two cities -or even within the same city.  So if one is poor, one quite rationally spends one's limited resources on the food that will reliably yield a satisfactory (if unhealthy) meal. 

The solution?  There is no one solution, of course.  Maybe this is a benefit we can confer- giving folks an economically "risk-free" chance to get to know and like healthier foods. 

Old plot, new garden

The third gardening season at the Latonia Baptist Church garden is on.  This year's crops will include (in order from back to front) tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, bell peppers; and (along the right edge of the garden) pole beans. 

Even better than having this garden set up for the season is the fact that Harvest Stewards will be canvassing some local community gardens this season -AND we've got some new volunteers too! 

Looking forward to a productive season!

Planting seeds

Very exciting to finally feel like the season is underway.  After a peculiarly warm late-Winter, it now feels as if the season is really ready to turn for good. 

I had the opportunity to meet with some community gardeners in Highland Heights this evening, to pitch the Harvest Stewards idea.  This season, we're targeting community gardens.  We hope to take advantage of the fact that folks may have to be absent from their beloved beans and tomatoes and zucchini on account of Summer vacationing.  When gardeners are unable to make it to their plots, they let us know and we check in on the plot during the gardener's absence to harvest and donate whatever is ready to be picked.  And, of course, we hope to prevail upon the good will of the gardeners to throw some surplus produce at us as well.  One person can only eat so much zucchini in one summer, after all...

I was also able to unload quite a lot of seeds donated to me by Baker Creek Nurseries.  It is great to see those seeds going to good use!