From the Road

Hi Everyone!

I began visiting organizations this week that have programs similar to those Salvation Farms aims to institute in Vermont in the coming years.  Through lots of rain, some fog and snow, as well as very thick holiday traffic, I was able to meet with six different organizations doing marvelous work in their communities. I am very grateful for the time given to me and the Salvation Farms mission by the organization and their representatives.

Visit the research trip page for more information.

Monday the 21st

Linn Benton Food Share, Corvallis Oregon

Linn Benton Food Share (LBFS) is a regional food bank within a network of food banks

that work in collaboration with the Oregon Food Bank and offers food access services to both individuals and agencies.  LBFS provides services to a two county region, roughly the size of Rhode Island with a population exceeding 202,000.  Among other responsibilities the organization provides oversight, training and regulation of gleaning groups within their service region.  The gleaning groups, 14 in total with more than 5,000 members, are all independent federally recognized non-profits and are comprised of volunteers who are strictly those in need of emergency/charitable food support.

Only one of the gleaning groups is not a federal non-profit and is instead a part of another community based service agency.  This is the one gleaners' site I visited.  In the photo, Pat Hart, Coordinator for the Philomath Community Gleaners, holds up a recently gleaned parsnip.  Their distribution site is located in a community center building with other social serviced based initiatives; food shelf, community garden, etc.  In addition to food items, the group gleans and distributes firewood quite successfully.  Their most recent glean was of a filbert (hazelnut) tree and I was able to see their drying process for the nuts.

The gleaning groups glean farm fields, back yard gardens and fruit trees in addition to local retail outlets.  Gleaning groups capture food and distribute it directly to their members.  This is often done through distribution days.  Because the gleaning groups are made up of individuals who are in need of food assistance, the food captured by the group is then distributed directly to its members.  These groups are providing for their own food needs and are reducing the demand on many of the regions food pantry sites.  Coordination of gleaning and distribution days are supported by the LBSF’s Gleaning Program Coordinator, Susan James.  I was lucky to have Susan spend four hours with me on Monday morning telling me all about the work of the gleaning groups as well as showing several sites.  In addition to visiting the Philomath Community Gleaners facility, we visited a Thanksgiving meal box distribution site where more than 1,350 families would be receiving holiday food boxes.  We also visited the Food Share’s own facility where they have distributed close to 5 million pounds of food in recent years to more than 70 agencies in their service regions.

Farmers Ending Hunger, Salem Oregon

In the afternoon I met with Farmers Ending Hunger’s (FEH) Executive Director, John Burt, for lunch.  We spent a little time getting to know each other and then John provided me an in-depth overview of the programs and partnerships that make the work of FEH successful.  The organization is only five years old but is well on its way to becoming a huge player in the emergency/charitable food industries sector in Oregon.  FEH uses infrastructure that already exists in the state to achieve its mission to eliminate hunger in Oregon by increasing the amount of high quality food available to hungry local communities through a partnership of farmers, food processors, Oregon Food Bank and the public.  This is very similar to how Salvation Farms aims to achieve its program objectives.

FEH works closely with the Oregon Food Bank, with producers of produce, wheat and beef, trucking companies and food processors.  Most of the products and services provided are donated by the organizations’ partners.  The state’s Department of Corrections is another partner offering a repacking of donated product service in a DOC facility warehouse equipped with a loading dock.  The organization is agriculturally based, founded by farms and directed by an individual with years of experience working within the state’s agricultural extension.  They work very hard to build buy-in within the agricultural sector through presenting and educating grower coops and associations.

Tuesday the 22nd

Bellingham Food Bank, Bellingham Washington

At 7:00 on Tuesday morning I met with Max Morange, the Bellingham Food Bank’s Agricultural Programs Coordinator for a brief visit and tour of the Food Bank’s facility as Max was in for a full day of meetings and trainings.  I was thankful to get in a brief hour and a half with him.  I did not feel at a loss with the short visit as Max and I have been talking on and off over the past year.  I was first contacted by him when I was working with the Vermont Foodbank and told him about the agricultural programs that we had instituted there.  After that initial correspondence I kept Max in mind while I worked as a researcher/writer for Why Hunger, composing a food sourcing guide for emergency food providers.  I interviewed Max and highlight the different work that the Bellingham Food Bank was doing to integrate an increased volume of fresh food into their inventory and distribution for the sourcing guide.  I was very familiar with the work of this organization and took advantage of the opportunity to see their facility while I was in the area and to visit someone I felt was quickly becoming a friend and valuable work associate.  Ironically, I was able to meet Max in person at the Community Food Security Conference in Oakland just three weeks ago.

Max oversees a produce purchasing program, the Food Bank farm production (though the farmer is not Food Bank staff) and their gleaning program. After a tour of the facility and a conversation about internal operational systems and supplies pertaining to fresh food sourcing and distribution, we discussed the gleaning program.  As this is an area near and dear to my heart and what I have the most applicable knowledge of, it seemed to me that finding out how the Bellingham Food Bank manages and coordinates their gleaning work would be most valuable.  I learned about the systems used to track volunteers, announce gleans, and track gleaned and distribution amounts.  Max shared with me ways he hoped he could improve some of these systems and we were able to brainstorm together solutions to obstacles and energy intensive tasks associated with gleaning programs.  Our conversation was very useful and I look forward to future conversations with Max about our similar work.

En route to Canada, I made a quick stop off at the Food Bank’s farm for a self-guided look around.  As the fields were in transition from peak production to being fallow for the winter season, the greenhouses were being prepped and replanted for the winter season.

Fraser Valley Gleaners, Abbotsford BC, Canada

I feel very fortunate to have visited this Canadian based organization.  I am very interested in the prospect of dehydrated foods and feel that as we move forward with food preservation, we need to think about its self-stability in terms of energy demand.  Dehydrating foods is energy intensive while in process but once dry and properly packaged requires no energy to store.

The organization works with major producers and most donate 1^st quality products that aren't making it to market.  Every day, excluding Sundays, the facility is full of volunteers averaging 50 individuals per day.  These volunteers have contributed 45,000 hours to date in 2011, and prepped veggies for the industrial scale dicer, a $40,000 piece of equipment.  Once the veggies are diced they are spread out on baking sheets to be placed in racks and then loaded into one of two dryers for eight hours.  Once dried, the vegetables are binned and stored until winter when the production/donation season slows.  It is in this slow period when the organization’s volunteers blend the dried soup mix and package it for distribution worldwide.

The organization distributes this dehydrated mix to more than 45 counties outside of the North American content.  They do not take on the greater distribution role but rather engage with ministries around the globe who apply for the dehydrated soup mix for distribution in their host country. In 2011 Fraser Valley Gleaners produced 11.5 million soup servings and foresee this annual volume increasing due to the willingness of producers to donate to the cause.  Much of the work is done by volunteers outside of the dicing and drying and, as a result, the organization's overhead is kept relatively low.  They have two paid part-time staffers who both contribute well over their paid part-time work week.

The organization is incredibly efficient and well organized.  It was impressive to watch the way their volunteers worked and how simple as well as systematic the operations were.   I send great thanks to Jack Weyh, pictured below, for his time and the tour provided.  I also appreciate Elaine and Carl Goosen's time and attention while organizing my visit as well as while I was there.

Wednesday the 23^rd

Rotary First Harvest, Seattle Washington

I met with Benjamin Rasmus for breakfast, a Rotary member and the Harvest Against Hunger Director.  We discussed the Rotary District program to move surplus agricultural products donated from producers into the charitable food system, similar to the operations of Farmers Ending Hunger.  In addition to this work, the greater Seattle based District organizes and oversees a statewide gleaning program.  This program works with regional food banks throughout Washington, one of which is the Bellingham Food Bank that I visit the previous day.

What I found unique about the Harvest Against Hunger program is the effort made by the Rotary District to secure AmeriCorps VISTAs who help institute and oversee the development of the individual gleaning programs around the state.  Prior to the AmeriCorps VISTA grant being secured, the district contacted potential partner organizations about their interest and willingness to host a VISTA and, in turn, commit to housing a gleaning program within their operations.

I am particularly inspired by the incorporation of VISTAs into this vision and the partnerships that have developed as a result of receiving this AmeriCorps grant.  It is equally exciting to think about the potential of engaging the organization and member base of Rotary Clubs.

Sustainable Prisons Project, Tumwater Washington

Wrapping up the first phase of my visits ended with a meeting at the headquarters of the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC).  I am honored to have chatted for more than an hour with Dan Pacholke, Director of Facilities and the Director of the Sustainable Prisons Project (SPP), especially since Dan took time out of his holiday break to meet with me to discuss the importance of the DOCs involvement with the SPP.  I was also fortunate to meet the Secretary of the Department who upon introduction informed me that he was born and spent some of his early years in Bennington Vermont.

The SPP is a partnership of the Evergreen State College and the Washington State DOC.  The mission of the project is to “bring science into prisons by helping scientists conduct ecological research and conserve biodiversity through projects with offenders, college students, and community partners. Equally important, we reduce the environmental, economic and human costs of prisons by training offenders and correctional staff in sustainable practices, such as recycling, organic gardening and composting.”

This program folds nicely in so many important ways into actions from reducing operating costs of and instituting environmentally responsible practices at the DOC facilities while engaging inmates in positive experiences that generate learning opportunities, personal and commitment development, pride and purpose as well as important skills that can be applied when inmates reintegrate into their communities.  This program also increases ownership and understanding of the importance of making decisions that are both economically and environmentally responsible that offer benefits to the greater community.

I feel that this partnership and the Washington DOC are leaders in smart prison programming.  They have taken an opportunity to not only reduce the inefficiencies of their own operations as it pertains to water consumption and waste diversion through implementing responsible management practices, but they have built an external partnership that is using inmate time and contributions to effect important scientific research.  An example of this is the inmates raising endangered frogs for release into wetlands around Washington.  Some may find it surprising that the frogs raised at the DOC facilities where consistently larger than those grown in strictly scientific sites.

In addition to the SPP, the DOC produces its own grain and has “food factories” at two of its facilities.  These factories act as the food service provider for all of the DOC prison facilities throughout the state.  At these facilities the inmates not only prepare prison meals and bake with their own grain, they also contribute half a million meals to Meals on Wheels and bake bread for area schools.

This is a wonderful use of tax payers’ dollars to fuel restorative justice efforts that fosters fabulous benefits for the state and a positive experience for individuals serving time in the state's justice system.

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