Community Services of Moses Lake did not to turn down any gleaning opportunity the first year. If the donation created saturation for a specific type of produce locally, efforts were made to distribute large quantities of that commodity to another part of the state using…
The greater Moses Lake area has quite a few u-pick farms that have opened in recent years and are still struggling to get off of the ground. By allowing Community Services of Moses Lake to glean, a u-pick farm is able to increase their publicity…
Central Washington has an abundance of commercial orchards and fields, which provide a vast opportunity for produce recovery. The largest hurdle to partner with commercial orchards is the scale necessary to handle such opportunities. For example, a gleaning event took place at a 600-acre orchard….
WSU Extension of Grant/Adams counties approached CSML to determine interest to start a pilot project to recover demonstration produce from the Grant County Fair. The county fair displays an assortment of arts, crafts, and produce for competition. WSU Extension ran the agricultural demonstration building during…
During the promotion of CSML and Harvest Against Hunger at the Moses Lake Farmers Market in August 2015, the AmeriCorps member established a farmers market recovery routine. A number of vendors wondered if they could donate their unsold food to the food bank. At the…
Community Services of Moses Lake (CSML) strives to empower the community to have “Friends helping friends feed the hungry”. CSML houses the Moses Lake Food Bank and is the distribution hub for 33 partner food banks in five counties in Central Washington, including the three…
Giving gardens provide a space for the community to come together and begin to get their hands dirty, either as a hobby, or maybe even a new learning experience. Moses Lake was home to two Giving Gardens before Harvest Against Hunger arrived, one of which…
Outreach, Communication, and Engagement of Donors CSML’s marketing efforts in traditional and social media reached volunteers and donors alike by making the mission of the program known to the greater community. Though results from cold calls and emails were negligible, local media coverage about the…
Central Washington is home to many large-scale farms and every event can result in a harvest of between six and 40 apple bins, which can hold up to 1,100 pounds of produce each. Thus, transportation and storage are crucial when working with such donation volumes….
Volunteers are essential to the success of most all gleaning projects. In its first year, Community Harvest relied primarily on a small group of dedicated volunteers, so the second season was successfully focused on expanding the program’s volunteer base. In 2014, Community Harvest moved locations; as…