Gardeners can help the needy
BOISE — A new program in Idaho is urging restaurants and gardeners to give their summer produce and other perishable food to help out the needy.
Organizers of Give Idaho Food say everything from zucchini to cantaloupe is being used to supplement the food offered at places such as the Boise Rescue Mission. It can be tough to distribute perishable foods, officials said, but the organization hopes to eventually have a toll-free number that donors can call to arrange prompt pickups. Meanwhile, organizers have distributed fliers at farmers’ markets about the new program.
“This will make it easier for people having excess food to get it to hungry people instead of putting it into the trash,” said spokeswoman Karen Jeffries. “All they have to do is call and someone will arrange to pick up the food and get it to pantries, kitchens and shelters.”
The food is coming in handy at the Boise Rescue Mission, said the mission’s executive director Bill Roscoe.
Already this year the mission has served 22,000 more meals than during the same period last year. More than 63,000 meals were served between May and August.
“I hope that this program will provide the mission with prepared food products too, which can immediately be used for one of the meal services, either as the entire meal or to supplement the meal,” Roscoe said. “Having prepared food that simply needs to be warmed up and served would be a great benefit to our kitchen staff.”
Albertsons, Starbucks and about a dozen local restaurants currently donate food, prepared and perishable, to the mission.
“Thousands of pounds of food are wasted every month in Idaho by restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, fruit and vegetable stands, meat markets, wholesale food distributors simply because they don’t know how to get the food to needy people,” Jeffries said.
“The Idaho Foodbank does have a number of restaurants that currently participate in a program, but they usually require a regular donation schedule,” she said.
“Boise Rescue Mission and the shelters and pantries they work with have more flexibility and can accept smaller quantities with shorter notice and can usually pick up the donations.”
Not all the donations are small, however. One call brought 670 pounds of corn and an eastern Idaho potato farmer invited volunteers to glean potatoes from his field after the harvest.
Williamson Orchards in Caldwell recently donated more than 2,000 pounds of fresh peaches and apricots and expects to donate additional fruit during the next few weeks, Susan Williamson said.
“We had quite a few apricots left over that were going to go bad unless someone took them right away, and we really don’t like throwing away things,” she said. “We would rather have it be used, and this seemed like a great opportunity.”