New Idea of the Week. Plant a Row for the Hungry. This week’s idea comes from the private sector and is a creative and fun way to tackle the very serious problem of hunger in our community. It’s the type of idea that alert legislators should be spotting and fostering in their home districts. The initiative, “Plant a Row for the Hungry,” was started by the Garden Writers Association, which has 1,800 professional communicators in the lawn and garden industry. The association members encourage home gardeners (of which the 48th district has plenty!) to plant an extra row of produce each year and donate the surplus to local food banks, soup kitchens and service organizations to help feed America’s hungry. The program began in 1995 when Jeffrey Lowenfels, who writes a gardening column for the Anchorage Daily News, suggested that his readers plant vegetables to be donated to a local food bank. Other garden columnists took up the call and the “Plant a Row” program was created. A supporting 501(c)(3) charity, the GWA Foundation, was added later to administer and expand the PAR program. In the last two decades, American gardeners have donated 20 million pounds of food and provided 80 million meals. The donation rate is now 2 million pounds a year. We can do even more. If every one of the 84 million home gardeners planted just one extra row of vegetables every year, we could make a significant impact on hunger in America, which afflicts one in every eight households. Now that summer is here and the weather is warm, we should all think about planting that extra row and donating the produce to one of these food donation sites in our community. Colchester Food Bank colchesterct.gov/Pages/ColchesterCT_Dept/YSB/FoodBank Lebanon Food Bank lebanontownhall.org/department.htm?id=udlbne96 Mansfield Food Bank mansfieldct.gov/content/1914/2527/ Windham/Willimantic covenantsoupkitchen.org/ The Garden Writers Association’s “Plant a Row” program stands ready to assist in coordinating the local food collection systems and monitoring the volume of donations being conveyed to food agencies. So check out its website: gardenwriters.org/gwa.php?p=par/index.html. Or call its Hotline 1-877-492-2727. Let’s get planting.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 02:48:03 +0000
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