Gardening for Charity?
 

I heard something on the radio about a group called "Plant a Row" (i think?)
where gardeners plant extra stuff, then donate the extras to charity. Anyone
here involved with such a group?

It seems to me, that donating some tomatoes or potatoes will not ever be able
to get corrupted, like SO MUCH of cash donations do (tied up in administrative
BS, or just lifted outright).

I'm thinking of putting in an additional row and looking for some local drop
points for the veggies. seems like a good idea to me--i mean, my garden always
produces way more than i can use anyways!

Gardening for Charity?
 

I heard something on the radio about a group called "Plant a Row" (i
think?)
where gardeners plant extra stuff, then donate the extras to charity.
Anyone
here involved with such a group?

I used to do "plant a row" (the actual group), then I quit because of all
the extra work involved...paperwork with your "pledge" then you had to take
the stuff where they said, etc. Anyway, I still DO donate my extra stuff,
but now I just take it where I want. I am a WW member. One of the other
members works at a local homeless shelter. I take my extras to him and he
takes them from there...even provides me with a receipt for tax purposes.
Since I only go to meetings once per week, I sometimes have extra that I'm
not sure will make it that long. I'm sure y'all know how it is when stuff
all seems to come in at the same time! We have a "family services" office
that isn't too far from me. They operate the local food pantry. I'll take
my extra there. They are thrilled because they only have non-perishables so
this way they can give people fresh fruits and vegetables. They also
provide a receipt for tax purposes. One thing I found out...the ones here
do NOT accept home canned items. Just thought I should add that in case
anybody was wondering.

Cecelia

Gardening for Charity?
 

I heard something on the radio about a group called "Plant a Row" (i
think?)
where gardeners plant extra stuff, then donate the extras to charity.
Anyone
here involved with such a group?

I used to do "plant a row" (the actual group), then I quit because of all
the extra work involved...paperwork with your "pledge" then you had to take
the stuff where they said, etc. Anyway, I still DO donate my extra stuff,
but now I just take it where I want. I am a WW member. One of the other
members works at a local homeless shelter. I take my extras to him and he
takes them from there...even provides me with a receipt for tax purposes.
Since I only go to meetings once per week, I sometimes have extra that I'm
not sure will make it that long. I'm sure y'all know how it is when stuff
all seems to come in at the same time! We have a "family services" office
that isn't too far from me. They operate the local food pantry. I'll take
my extra there. They are thrilled because they only have non-perishables so
this way they can give people fresh fruits and vegetables. They also
provide a receipt for tax purposes. One thing I found out...the ones here
do NOT accept home canned items. Just thought I should add that in case
anybody was wondering.

Cecelia

Gardening for Charity?
 

I heard something on the radio about a group called "Plant a Row" (i
think?)
where gardeners plant extra stuff, then donate the extras to charity.
Anyone
here involved with such a group?

I used to do "plant a row" (the actual group), then I quit because of all
the extra work involved...paperwork with your "pledge" then you had to take
the stuff where they said, etc. Anyway, I still DO donate my extra stuff,
but now I just take it where I want. I am a WW member. One of the other
members works at a local homeless shelter. I take my extras to him and he
takes them from there...even provides me with a receipt for tax purposes.
Since I only go to meetings once per week, I sometimes have extra that I'm
not sure will make it that long. I'm sure y'all know how it is when stuff
all seems to come in at the same time! We have a "family services" office
that isn't too far from me. They operate the local food pantry. I'll take
my extra there. They are thrilled because they only have non-perishables so
this way they can give people fresh fruits and vegetables. They also
provide a receipt for tax purposes. One thing I found out...the ones here
do NOT accept home canned items. Just thought I should add that in case
anybody was wondering.

Cecelia

Gardening for Charity?
 

I heard something on the radio about a group called "Plant a Row" (i
think?)
where gardeners plant extra stuff, then donate the extras to charity.
Anyone
here involved with such a group?

I used to do "plant a row" (the actual group), then I quit because of all
the extra work involved...paperwork with your "pledge" then you had to take
the stuff where they said, etc. Anyway, I still DO donate my extra stuff,
but now I just take it where I want. I am a WW member. One of the other
members works at a local homeless shelter. I take my extras to him and he
takes them from there...even provides me with a receipt for tax purposes.
Since I only go to meetings once per week, I sometimes have extra that I'm
not sure will make it that long. I'm sure y'all know how it is when stuff
all seems to come in at the same time! We have a "family services" office
that isn't too far from me. They operate the local food pantry. I'll take
my extra there. They are thrilled because they only have non-perishables so
this way they can give people fresh fruits and vegetables. They also
provide a receipt for tax purposes. One thing I found out...the ones here
do NOT accept home canned items. Just thought I should add that in case
anybody was wondering.

Cecelia

Gardening for Charity?
 

On 04 Feb 2004 11:51:30 GMT, (Bpyboy) wrote:

I heard something on the radio about a group called "Plant a Row" (i think?)
where gardeners plant extra stuff, then donate the extras to charity. Anyone
here involved with such a group?

It seems to me, that donating some tomatoes or potatoes will not ever be able
to get corrupted, like SO MUCH of cash donations do (tied up in administrative
BS, or just lifted outright).

I'm thinking of putting in an additional row and looking for some local drop
points for the veggies. seems like a good idea to me--i mean, my garden always
produces way more than i can use anyways!

It's called 'Plant a Row for the Hungry' and sponsored by
the Garden Writers Association of America.

http://www.gwaa.org/par/

I emailed them asking for the further information they offer
and they never replied, which was disappointing. I'll
probably try again - maybe they didn't receive my email.

But you don't need to be associated with this group: we
contributed veggies to our local Food Bank last year, and
will again this year (more, in fact, as I'm planting extra
this year specifically for this purpose).

There's a terrific dearth of fresh stuff given out at the
Food Bank, so any garden veggies are really welcomed.

A nice project (for someone else, my hands are full at the
moment): Someone could set up a website where
rec.gardens.edible posters could enter the types and amounts
of veggies donated (and maybe their state or province and
country) into a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet maintainer
could post a summary monthly or quarterly.

Pat Meadows

Copyright © 2004 Patricia Meadows
All Rights Reserved

Permission to use this posting in any venue other than the
Usenet newsgroup rec.gardens.edible is specifically denied.
If you are reading this message on a website, the website's
owner has taken it without permission and in violation of my
copyright.

Gardening for Charity?
 

Be sure to contact your food bank before you show up with a lot of
perishable goodies. I know our local facility is woefully short of
cooler space. They'd *like* to be able to handle a lot of produce,
fresh dairy, etc., but just don't have the room. There can also be
disposal problems for what goes bad. It can be tough to find ways to
get fresh produce to those who truly need it, but don't give up!

Monique in TX

Gardening for Charity?
 

Be sure to contact your food bank before you show up with a lot of
perishable goodies. I know our local facility is woefully short of
cooler space. They'd *like* to be able to handle a lot of produce,
fresh dairy, etc., but just don't have the room. There can also be
disposal problems for what goes bad. It can be tough to find ways to
get fresh produce to those who truly need it, but don't give up!

Monique in TX

Gardening for Charity?
 

I have grapes go to waste every year, I can't pick 'em and it seems
that few want to pick them. Seedless Canadice, Himrod, a variety I
don't know the name of but are seedless and WONDERFUL. I started them
from a friend's vine. It was seeded in their yard, always had been,
seedless in mine (except for those years where all the seedless
varieties have pulpy seeds due to growing conditions), Mars and Venus
deep red and black seedless. Wonderful grapes.

People want you to bring them to their doors at times.

This is not to say that is wouldn't be a good thing to grow a row or
more for the homeless and hungry. Soup kitchens if nothing else would
welcome fresh produce to make soup with, but food banks usually are
not set up to store or distribute fresh foods unless they have a brisk
business every day.

I think there are some church groups here in town who would manage to
get overripe bananas donated as I'd seen the stuff they were giving
out on a couple occasions when I'd driven friends out to get things.
They were ready for banana bread.

Years ago they used to have a commodity food program and they gave out
some things that were better than you could buy.. huge pitted prunes
and nice raisins, powdered eggs.. while not something you'd want to
eat as scrambled eggs were great to make baking mixes with.

We had, don't know if they still are in operation, Gleaners who went
out into the fields after mechanical harvesters had cleaned out what
they could from the fields, and they would get all the produce that
the machinery had missed and bring it in for the food banks and soup
kitchens. I'll have to try to find them this year and see if they
want anything that might grow after some are pruned to correct what
someone had done with them... sheared them like a hedge! LOL

Janice

On 04 Feb 2004 11:51:30 GMT, (Bpyboy) wrote:

I heard something on the radio about a group called "Plant a Row" (i think?)
where gardeners plant extra stuff, then donate the extras to charity. Anyone
here involved with such a group?

It seems to me, that donating some tomatoes or potatoes will not ever be able
to get corrupted, like SO MUCH of cash donations do (tied up in administrative
BS, or just lifted outright).

I'm thinking of putting in an additional row and looking for some local drop
points for the veggies. seems like a good idea to me--i mean, my garden always
produces way more than i can use anyways!

Gardening for Charity?
 

Janice wrote:

We had, don't know if they still are in operation, Gleaners who went
out into the fields after mechanical harvesters had cleaned out what
they could from the fields, and they would get all the produce that
the machinery had missed and bring it in for the food banks and soup
kitchens. I'll have to try to find them this year and see if they
want anything that might grow after some are pruned to correct what
someone had done with them... sheared them like a hedge! LOL

Try searching on "Second Harvest". I think that's the name of the org. in the
northeast, anyway.

Mary

Gardening for Charity?
 

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 10:37:45 -0700, Janice
wrote:



This is not to say that is wouldn't be a good thing to grow a row or
more for the homeless and hungry. Soup kitchens if nothing else would
welcome fresh produce to make soup with, but food banks usually are
not set up to store or distribute fresh foods unless they have a brisk
business every day.

Our local Food Bank meets twice per month. Those are the
days we bring in garden veggies (when we have them, of
course). No storage is involved. We just give the basket
of veggies to the volunteers and they set them on a table
for people to help themselves.

The food distributed is fairly crappy, and there's almost
nothing fresh, so any fresh veggies are *really* *really*
appreciated. The people at the Food Bank are very happy to
get garden veggies.



Years ago they used to have a commodity food program and they gave out
some things that were better than you could buy.. huge pitted prunes
and nice raisins, powdered eggs.. while not something you'd want to
eat as scrambled eggs were great to make baking mixes with.

I can only speak for our local Food Bank (which is not a
commodity food program): most of the food is low quality
(stale doughnuts, stale bagels, and the like). Some is OK.
Occasionally, there will be an item or two of nutritionally
very good food. Rarely.

I know whereof I speak, my husband and I are recipients of
food at this Food Bank (as well as donors of garden veggies
when we have them), by virtue of our present ridiculously
low income.


We had, don't know if they still are in operation, Gleaners who went
out into the fields after mechanical harvesters had cleaned out what
they could from the fields, and they would get all the produce that
the machinery had missed and bring it in for the food banks and soup
kitchens. I'll have to try to find them this year and see if they
want anything that might grow after some are pruned to correct what
someone had done with them... sheared them like a hedge! LOL


This would be nice.

Pat

Gardening for Charity?
 

I have grapes go to waste every year, I can't pick 'em and it seems
that few want to pick them. Seedless Canadice, Himrod, a variety I
don't know the name of but are seedless and WONDERFUL. I started them
from a friend's vine. It was seeded in their yard, always had been,
seedless in mine (except for those years where all the seedless
varieties have pulpy seeds due to growing conditions), Mars and Venus
deep red and black seedless. Wonderful grapes.

People want you to bring them to their doors at times.

This is not to say that is wouldn't be a good thing to grow a row or
more for the homeless and hungry. Soup kitchens if nothing else would
welcome fresh produce to make soup with, but food banks usually are
not set up to store or distribute fresh foods unless they have a brisk
business every day.

I think there are some church groups here in town who would manage to
get overripe bananas donated as I'd seen the stuff they were giving
out on a couple occasions when I'd driven friends out to get things.
They were ready for banana bread.

Years ago they used to have a commodity food program and they gave out
some things that were better than you could buy.. huge pitted prunes
and nice raisins, powdered eggs.. while not something you'd want to
eat as scrambled eggs were great to make baking mixes with.

We had, don't know if they still are in operation, Gleaners who went
out into the fields after mechanical harvesters had cleaned out what
they could from the fields, and they would get all the produce that
the machinery had missed and bring it in for the food banks and soup
kitchens. I'll have to try to find them this year and see if they
want anything that might grow after some are pruned to correct what
someone had done with them... sheared them like a hedge! LOL

Janice

On 04 Feb 2004 11:51:30 GMT, (Bpyboy) wrote:

I heard something on the radio about a group called "Plant a Row" (i think?)
where gardeners plant extra stuff, then donate the extras to charity. Anyone
here involved with such a group?

It seems to me, that donating some tomatoes or potatoes will not ever be able
to get corrupted, like SO MUCH of cash donations do (tied up in administrative
BS, or just lifted outright).

I'm thinking of putting in an additional row and looking for some local drop
points for the veggies. seems like a good idea to me--i mean, my garden always
produces way more than i can use anyways!

Gardening for Charity?
 

Janice wrote:

We had, don't know if they still are in operation, Gleaners who went
out into the fields after mechanical harvesters had cleaned out what
they could from the fields, and they would get all the produce that
the machinery had missed and bring it in for the food banks and soup
kitchens. I'll have to try to find them this year and see if they
want anything that might grow after some are pruned to correct what
someone had done with them... sheared them like a hedge! LOL

Try searching on "Second Harvest". I think that's the name of the org. in the
northeast, anyway.

Mary

Gardening for Charity?
 

I have grapes go to waste every year, I can't pick 'em and it seems
that few want to pick them. Seedless Canadice, Himrod, a variety I
don't know the name of but are seedless and WONDERFUL. I started them
from a friend's vine. It was seeded in their yard, always had been,
seedless in mine (except for those years where all the seedless
varieties have pulpy seeds due to growing conditions), Mars and Venus
deep red and black seedless. Wonderful grapes.

People want you to bring them to their doors at times.

This is not to say that is wouldn't be a good thing to grow a row or
more for the homeless and hungry. Soup kitchens if nothing else would
welcome fresh produce to make soup with, but food banks usually are
not set up to store or distribute fresh foods unless they have a brisk
business every day.

I think there are some church groups here in town who would manage to
get overripe bananas donated as I'd seen the stuff they were giving
out on a couple occasions when I'd driven friends out to get things.
They were ready for banana bread.

Years ago they used to have a commodity food program and they gave out
some things that were better than you could buy.. huge pitted prunes
and nice raisins, powdered eggs.. while not something you'd want to
eat as scrambled eggs were great to make baking mixes with.

We had, don't know if they still are in operation, Gleaners who went
out into the fields after mechanical harvesters had cleaned out what
they could from the fields, and they would get all the produce that
the machinery had missed and bring it in for the food banks and soup
kitchens. I'll have to try to find them this year and see if they
want anything that might grow after some are pruned to correct what
someone had done with them... sheared them like a hedge! LOL

Janice

On 04 Feb 2004 11:51:30 GMT, (Bpyboy) wrote:

I heard something on the radio about a group called "Plant a Row" (i think?)
where gardeners plant extra stuff, then donate the extras to charity. Anyone
here involved with such a group?

It seems to me, that donating some tomatoes or potatoes will not ever be able
to get corrupted, like SO MUCH of cash donations do (tied up in administrative
BS, or just lifted outright).

I'm thinking of putting in an additional row and looking for some local drop
points for the veggies. seems like a good idea to me--i mean, my garden always
produces way more than i can use anyways!

Gardening for Charity?
 

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 10:37:45 -0700, Janice
wrote:



This is not to say that is wouldn't be a good thing to grow a row or
more for the homeless and hungry. Soup kitchens if nothing else would
welcome fresh produce to make soup with, but food banks usually are
not set up to store or distribute fresh foods unless they have a brisk
business every day.

Our local Food Bank meets twice per month. Those are the
days we bring in garden veggies (when we have them, of
course). No storage is involved. We just give the basket
of veggies to the volunteers and they set them on a table
for people to help themselves.

The food distributed is fairly crappy, and there's almost
nothing fresh, so any fresh veggies are *really* *really*
appreciated. The people at the Food Bank are very happy to
get garden veggies.



Years ago they used to have a commodity food program and they gave out
some things that were better than you could buy.. huge pitted prunes
and nice raisins, powdered eggs.. while not something you'd want to
eat as scrambled eggs were great to make baking mixes with.

I can only speak for our local Food Bank (which is not a
commodity food program): most of the food is low quality
(stale doughnuts, stale bagels, and the like). Some is OK.
Occasionally, there will be an item or two of nutritionally
very good food. Rarely.

I know whereof I speak, my husband and I are recipients of
food at this Food Bank (as well as donors of garden veggies
when we have them), by virtue of our present ridiculously
low income.


We had, don't know if they still are in operation, Gleaners who went
out into the fields after mechanical harvesters had cleaned out what
they could from the fields, and they would get all the produce that
the machinery had missed and bring it in for the food banks and soup
kitchens. I'll have to try to find them this year and see if they
want anything that might grow after some are pruned to correct what
someone had done with them... sheared them like a hedge! LOL


This would be nice.

Pat