The Food Co-op Farmer Fund collects donations from shoppers and then divides those funds equally between three local farms each quarter (the farms rotate each quarter). You can donate any amount online at https://www.foodcoop.coop/change-for-change or when you check out at the Co-op—just say you want to donate to the Farmer Fund or Change for Change. The farmers use the funds to provide their food to the Food Bank, the schools, or to subsidize CSAs, etc.

This quarter, instead of three farms, we are collecting for the Food Bank Growers, an extensive group that now includes the Gleaners. They grow, collect, and distribute local bounty to our community in a variety of ways. Check out their extensive website at https://www.foodbankgrowers.org/.

by Kathy Ryan, Past President of the Food Bank Growers

At its heart, the Food Bank Growers is simply about volunteers sharing abundance. But that does not happen in a vacuum. Originally incorporated in 2013 as Foodbank Farm and Gardens, today it’s grown to include growers, gatherers, preservers, cooks, and food bank workers.

In 2012, a report from Washington State University Extension indicated that locally grown produce was a critical, unmet need for Jefferson County Food Bank users. The Food Bank Growers group was started through grants from the WSU Master Gardener Foundation and the Jefferson County Food Bank Association, building on the community garden movement in Port Townsend, which in turn grew out of a Local 20/20 book discussion group. The group read and discussed Menu for the Future, a collection of essays from the Northwest Earth Institute that included a challenge to find ways to turn the information into action.

The four food banks in Jefferson county serve about 5000 families over the course of a month, folks struggling to keep roofs over their heads, many moving from rental to rental, sometimes with autoimmune disorders, sometimes on chemotherapy, sometimes with food allergies and special dietary requirements for whom food is literally medicine. Some are vets, some are gig workers, some are musicians, artists, and artisans. Some are seniors. Some lack pensions. Some are laid off from jobs they worked for decades. Some are lonely. Every week they share smiles, recipes, jokes, art, haiku, and so much more with those of us who work at the food bank. And we share fresh, local, produce—and eggs, herbs, and flowers! It’s food and a virtual hug.

In 2021, we grew and donated about 18,000 pounds of produce plus nearly 200 dozen eggs!  Another group of volunteers, Quimper First Harvest (aka the Gleaners), harvested another 18,000 pounds, chiefly from residential orchards. Founded in 2007, the Gleaners formally joined the Food Bank Growers last year, which provides them insurance and fiscal management.

Our first garden plot was at Mountain View Commons and followed the Whidbey Island Good Cheer Food Bank’s model. The space was tiny and the yield small. That garden was quickly followed by a garden at Port Townsend High School, which was tended by students as part of their health curriculum during the school year and by FBG volunteers during the summer. The next garden was at the Quimper Grange, part of the Grange’s commitment to farmers working together. We are now 12 gardens totaling over 2 acres, from Port Townsend through the TriArea, through generous land-use agreements. The gardens are tended by volunteers with training and support from the WSU Extension Master Gardeners, Growing Groceries, and Seed Library.

Our garden managers saw the need for education beyond the hands-on nitty-gritty of working in the gardens and created local “Growing Groceries” classes in collaboration with the WSU Extension in 2014. The majority of our volunteers have taken that or other similar programs and continue to research best practices. We provide scholarships for the “Growing Groceries” course.

We’ve also been involved in two seed library projects. The growers at the Quimper Grange garden began a seed library which provides seeds to the Food Bank gardens as well as to community gardens and individuals, and FBF&G helped with the initial funding for the library of locally-developed seeds now housed at WSU. In their “spare time” garden volunteers overhauled the website, created Google Docs storage for archives, and started a pot repurposing project. And the Gleaners created an incredible applesauce project—check out https://www.foodbankgrowers.org/apple-sauce-triathlon.

Because the Food Bank Growers are part of a large informal network of providers and distributors, we have worked with local visionaries to provide an umbrella for varied projects:

Peddler PT bloomed during COVID. When everything shut down, Juri Jennings, recently laid off, created a bicycle delivery system to get groceries from the Food Co-Op to local folks who were self-isolating. She expanded with support from partners and donors (including the Co-op and the Jefferson Community Foundation) to pick up and deliver from community gardens and the Quimper Grange Food Bank Garden to the Port Townsend Food Bank. Those of you who know Juri know she is no bigger than a minute, and yet she could bike up to 200 pounds on her cargo bike. This meant cars off the road and easier parking at the Food Bank, leaving space for cars picking up boxes for themselves and their neighbors. It meant hundreds of pounds more local produce for the food banks when many retail distributors and food banks were experiencing supply line disruptions. After COVID, Juri reengineered the project to deliver from the Food Bank to seniors in collaboration with Jefferson Healthcare. As her family grew, that project was moved to OLYCAP.

The Freeze Dryer Project began in 2019 with an idea from a Neighborhood Preparedness (NPREP) block captain in Port Ludlow. Sue Cross needed a sponsor to enable her to fundraise for a pilot program to make surplus produce available longer by freeze-drying the food. Money was needed to buy a freeze dryer. With FBG and a committee including members from the WSU Extension, the Jefferson County Board of Health, and a local chef, Sue secured funding from multiple sources, including a legislative grant through Representative Steve Tharinger, funding through Jefferson Community Foundation and the Co-Op, and a generous match from an anonymous donor. The project to date has processed 340 bags of surplus fruit and vegetables for emergency use, and an equivalent amount was shared with the nutrition programs through Bayside Housing. The successful pilot project is being scaled up by partners, and the two freeze driers have new homes in 2023: one at the Recovery Cafe, where food surplus will be freeze dried for distribution through their Little Free Pantry, and one unit at Salish Coast through a partnership with the Port Townsend Public Schools, where it will be part of the education and food service program. We look forward to these new uses to better share food surplus and reduce food waste.

2023 will be the 10th anniversary of the Food Bank Growers. The generosity of landowners and volunteers has made this happen. We grow. We gather. We give. Join us.