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Harvest Against Hunger AmeriCorps VISTA Lindsey Shaw serves at the Society of Saint Andrew (SoSA), a non-profit connecting farmers, agencies, and volunteers to glean produce in Mississippi/Arkansas. In 2018, SoSA MS gleaned 2,751,580 pounds of fresh produce in 461 events, with 2,515 volunteers. Food donated by 74 farmers has been distributed to hungry people through 240 feeding agencies. Formed in 1979, SoSA serves the states of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, North & South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia with additional gleanings in the Midwest. 

Every year, Southern Miss University puts on an annual Crop Drop during homecoming week to help feed their neighbors on campus and the surrounding community. Not once has this event worked out as planned! Last year our driver cancelled at the last minute. So, when life throws a curb ball, don’t freak out! Ask your community partners how to adapt to make it successful.

We are so glad that there are so many dedicated organizations in Mississippi that are committed to feeding their neighbors and communities. At this event, one difficulty after another presented itself as a barrier to us doing the crop drop, but our partners were dedicated to making it happen.

Our volunteer drove an 18-wheeler full of 20,000 pounds of potatoes almost 4 hours across the state to deliver at the drop spot, but arrived 3.5 hours later than anticipated. Volunteers started to fall off since the truck was late and other homecoming activities were scheduled. What were we to do with 20K pounds? That’s #sweetpotatoes for days…

At that point, a volunteer named Jim drove his forklift, volunteers and pallets from across town to help move things. What ended up happening was awesome! We ended up bagging 20,000 sweet potatoes in 1.5 hours. Due to a lot of our partners that came together, it was fast! People were overwhelmed by the response they received from their partners. People from all over the state Facebook liked, shared, and wanted to be involved, asking how they could help.

This one event is helping other non-profits grow and potentially get more food to their community. The video showing the results gave publicity and community awareness to the issues of hunger and highlighted those doing the work. It was a motivating force because of the unique situation. Jim found out the adaptation. He stepped out of his routine and helped by driving his fork lift 12 miles per hour across town! This video reached 2,500 views in one day, which isn’t going viral, but for the town of Hattiesburg, that’s a lot of people!!! People everywhere saw and that one video was worth all the hiccups. Sometimes we have to step back and measure our success in a different way. Things don’t always work out perfectly or timely but touching people and impacting lives is our ultimate mission.

It looked like a terrible day, but what ended up happening is that more people were available to help! Takeaway: You can’t get too bogged down when some things go wrong. You have to have faith in your partners that there’s a plan in motion for every obstacle when we work together.