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2.4 million pounds and counting: How sending surplus crops to food banks is helping Washington farmers and hungry families
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Seattle Times
Posted: August 10th, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/2-3m-pounds-and-co...
It started with a simple message on Facebook on April 29. George Ahearn had heard about farmers in Eastern Washington who were giving away potatoes and onions and wanted to know if someone had a truck he could borrow to haul the discarded crops to Western Washington food banks. The response was immediate and dramatic. A convoy of four trucks, including two with trailers, made the trip east, helping provide quite a bounty for local food banks. We brought back 9.36 tons when my original goal was 2,000 pounds (one ton), Aheard said. The effort didnt end there. EastWest Food Rescue is now a registered nonprofit organization, having delivered more than 2.4 million pounds of crops to more than 160 food banks. Not only is it helping with food security, but the organization is paying the farmers, who saw the market for some of their crops vanish during the coronavirus pandemic. The whole thing started because of COVID, said Nancy Balin, who answered Ahearns initial request and is now one of three directors of the program. They immediately lost all the restaurant contracts they had for these restaurant-quality potatoes and onions. Meanwhile, unemployment was spiking everywhere, along with the need for food. People who had never needed food before needed food banks, and these farmers have potatoes that they need to get rid of, Balin said. The goal now is 10 million pounds of food rescued, which Balin said will take $250,000 in donations in addition to hundreds of volunteer hours.
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