Outreach Within the first year of a gleaning program, it is advantageous to send out information to potential collaborating farms during the offseason. During the off-season, a farmer would be more likely to catch an email or letter or have the time to meet in…
Thurston County Food Bank (TCFB) has been gleaning between 40 and 60,000 lbs of produce each year, thanks to a few key donors. TCFB works primarily with six growers (5 small-scale commercial farms and 1 service club that grows solely for the food bank). In…
The current gleaning program in Thurston County began in 2009 with an AmeriCorps member placement at TCFB. Previous to this, Olympia had a gleaning coalition independent from the food bank, but eventually, the main volunteer departed and gleaning projects hibernated. The current model is a…
Assess Potential Volunteer Sources Identify organizations and institutions in your area. Do they already do volunteer work? Hunger relief is an easy sell to organizations. When you tack on the added benefit of waste reduction it is even more enticing to environmentally conscious groups. If…
A few tips on marketing to attract volunteers and donors. Target your audience. Who makes up your gleaning volunteers? At TCFB the main demographics are Generation Xers and Baby Boomers with extra time on their hands, whether they are retired, stay-at-home parents, or in between…
Volunteers are the most essential piece of a functioning gleaning program. Keeping a well-trained and supported group of gleaning volunteers will lead to its success. The first thing to remember is that volunteer recruitment is never done. Gleaning is physically demanding, subject to bad weather,…
Plant a Row for the Hungry (PAR) was launched in 1995 as a public service program of the Garden Writers Association. Garden writers encouraged their readers/listeners to plant an extra row of produce each year and donate their surplus to local food banks, soup kitchens,…
The same laws that protect commercial donors apply to individual donors. The Federal Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act protects all food donors and gleaners from criminal and civil liability. With the liability issue covered, the focus turns to program development and donor recruitment. For this, marketing materials are…
Garden Centers Establishing a relationship with local garden centers provides an excellent platform for promoting Plant a Row where gardeners are purchasing goods in preparation for and maintenance of their gardens. Some ways garden centers have promoted the program have been displaying posters and brochures…
To succeed in retaining well-meaning volunteers or donors you must be able to demonstrate the necessity of their participation by connecting them with a problem that has a mutually beneficial solution. In the development of a PAR program those solutions may look like this: Community…