Ever find that your backyard garden produces more tomatoes, radishes and basil than you know what to do with? Well, after you’ve made all the fresh salads, soups and roasts you can imagine, consider donating your extra produce to those less fortunate in the St. Louis area.
The Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry, run by the Jewish Family & Children’s Service, has launched a new program called Share the Harvest, which will add fresh produce to the canned and packaged goods the food pantry distributes to more than 1,300 families each month.
The idea was started by Laura Silver, a local mother and a bit of a green thumb. Her 6-year-old twins picked out a bevy of colorful fruit and vegetable plants, and she enthusiastically planted them in the backyard. When the soil began bursting with colorful fresh produce, however, she found herself with more fruits and veggies than her twins were interested in consuming. After giving some away to friends and her kids’ teachers, she decided she’d like to donate her bountiful surplus to the area’s hungry.
Now, local gardeners who find themselves with a healthy harvest can drop off extra produce at the food pantry in Creve Coeur, which distributes to those in need in more than 89 zip codes in the St. Louis metropolitan area. All produce should be fresh, undamaged and homegrown – make sure anything you donate is something you’d put on your own family’s table. Got more fresh herbs than you can use? Those make great additions as well.
“Fresh-grown herbs are fantastic for the food pantry because they don’t spoil as quickly, and they also add such incredible flavor to dishes that you can make wonderful on a shoestring,” Silver said. Silver is also working to create recipes that the food pantry can pair with the food they’re donating, giving local families a quick and easy way to put a delicious dinner on the table.
Produce donations may be dropped off Monday to Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. at the Jewish Family & Children’s Service Allan R. Hoffman Building, 10950 Schuetz Road, Creve Coeur. To coordinate other drop off arrangements, call the pantry’s program coordinator, Susan Rundblad, at 314.812.9307.
– Stacy Schultz
This article appears in Jun 1-30, 2010.