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Grow Extra Vegetables for Local Food Banks

Plant a Row for the Hungry Benefits Local Communities

Nov 14, 2009 Chris McLaughlin

Sharing vegetable produce with the community through a local food bank is an eye-opening experience for the whole family.

One of the many great reasons for growing fruit and vegetables in the home garden is the capability of sharing the bounty with others.

Fresh food can be offered to extended family, friends, co-workers and neighbors. Another way to share excess bounty from the garden is to take vegetables and fruit to a community food bank. While many people remain unaware, millions of Americans are going hungry on a daily basis in our own neighborhoods.

This is a look at hunger in the way of numbers. According to the findings of the Department of Agriculture, Tufts University School of Nutrition, and America’s Second Harvest, the statistics look like this:

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one in ten households in the United States experiences hunger or the risk of hunger. Many skip meals, sometimes going without food for an entire day.
Approximately 25 million people, including 9.9 million children, have substandard diets or must resort to seeking emergency food because they cannot always afford the food they need.
7.3 percent of U.S. households are at risk of hunger: they have lower quality diets or must resort to seeking emergency food because they cannot always afford the food they need.
24.7 million people, including 9.9 million children, live in these homes.
Millions of poor children suffer from chronic under-nutrition, the under-consumption of essential nutrients and food energy.

Nutrient deficiencies can lead to serious health problems, including impaired cognitive development, growth failure, physical weakness, anemia and stunting.

Plant a Row for the Hungry

In 2008, the San Francisco Victory Gardens organization grew vegetables in raised beds outside of San Francisco’s City Hall. They managed to harvest 50 to 150 pounds of groceries for the San Francisco Food Bank and were distributed to dozens of programs throughout the city.

Individual gardeners can mimic this organization's generosity in creative ways. One of those may include The Garden Writers Association Foundation's program called, "Plant a Row for the Hungry". Individual gardeners, families, and businesses can participate in this program that's already supplied 14 million pounds of produce to those in need throughout the United States and Canada.

Any gardener interested in starting a Plant a Row for the Hungry campaign in their area, please contact the Garden Writers Association Foundation. They offer strategies, direction and guidance. They continue their support by training gardeners and businesses in reaching out to their communities.

If every gardener of the over 84 million gardens that are planted in the United States grew only one row of vegetables for those in need, the impact on local hunger would be staggering. This growing season, consider feeding your community.

The copyright of the article Grow Extra Vegetables for Local Food Banks in Vegetable Gardens is owned by Chris McLaughlin. Permission to republish Grow Extra Vegetables for Local Food Banks in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Plant Vegetables for the Local Food Bank