FAYETTEVILLE -- A charitable organization that started with a simple idea -- giving fresh produce to people in need -- is ramping up its operation.
Seeds That Feed organizers have collected surplus fruit and vegetables from vendors, gardeners and shoppers for the past three years at the Fayetteville Farmers' Market.
Using personal vehicles, workers take the produce to food pantries, homeless shelters, community meals and homebound residents in the city. It's a process they call "carecropping."
"We started on the first day collecting like 35 pounds," said Alyssa Snyder, who co-founded Seeds That Feed with Aron Shelton in 2012. "A week or so later, it was 150 pounds. Then it was 200. And then, you know, we were getting up to having 500-pound days."
The organization has distributed more than 40,000 pounds of fresh food to more than a dozen community groups, such as Cooperative Emergency Outreach, Fayetteville Public Schools' Outback Pantry, St. Paul's Episcopal Church and LifeSource International.
With growth came the difficulty of hauling all of that produce.
Seeds That Feed used a $29,780 grant from the Walmart Foundation earlier this year to create a "mobile produce pantry." It's a repurposed box truck organizers can use, rather than racking up miles on their own cars.
"As part of its local giving strategy in Northwest Arkansas, the Walmart Foundation seeks to enhance the quality of life in our community by increasing access to the healthy food for those most in need," Karen Parker, senior manager of Walmart Corporate Giving, wrote in an emailed statement. "We are excited to support Seeds That Feed in this innovative new way to deliver fresh and healthy food to local food banks."
Jane Gearhart, a regular volunteer with Cooperative Emergency Outreach, said the box truck will give a worthy organization a valuable boost.
The agency uses donations from area churches, individuals and businesses to provide a range of services, including three-day food supplies, to people who are having trouble making ends meet.
Cooperative Emergency Outreach, like other food pantries, typically receives nonperishable items, such as beans, peanut butter, canned fruit and cereal. Gearhart said the fresh greens, radishes, carrots and squash Seeds That Feed brings are a welcome bonus.
"It goes like lightning," Gearhart said. "It's the most remarkable thing.
"Our clients are so appreciative of having the fresh produce, so to think that (Seeds That Feed) is going to be able to step this up and have their own vehicle to transport the food, I can't think of any group that's any more deserving of that kind of piece of equipment. It's just a wonderful organization, and the people who work for it are some of the most dedicated people I've ever met."
Of course, delivering fresh produce has its difficulties, too.
It's great to give someone something healthy to eat, but if they don't know how to cook it, chances are the food will go to waste.
That's why Seeds That Feed organizers are incorporating a "cookbox" program with the mobile pantry. Some of the deliveries will be packaged in cardboard boxes that include recipes.
"They're all very simple with short ingredient lists," Margaret Thomas, Seeds That Feed's director of nutrition and education, said. "We tried to focus on the majority of what we would be donating with having to add olive oil, salt and pepper and maybe some spices."
Seeds That Feed is also creating a series of cooking videos that will be posted on YouTube to give recipients further instruction.
"If we can show them it's easy and they probably have the majority of the ingredients already in their pantry, then we've just kind of knocked down all the barriers and introduced them to something new and delicious," Snyder said.
Seeds That Feed will be showing off its new truck and filling cookboxes for the first time from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m Saturday on the downtown square. For a suggested donation of $10, farmers market shoppers can sponsor a cookbox for someone in need. Half of the donation will go to the vendors who donate the food. The other half will go back into the production of more cookboxes, Snyder explained.
After the farmers market closes Saturday, Seeds That Feed organizers will head to Hillcrest Towers, a public housing development for low-income seniors and people with disabilities. Next week, they plan to take their cookboxes to Washington Plaza, an apartment complex on Lewis Avenue where a high percentage of tenants' rent are subsidized by the federal government.
Snyder said they're trying to target senior and disabled residents in particular.
"There's a lot of places where people aren't even able to necessarily get out to a community meal," she said.
NW News on 07/18/2015