Our annual Bucks Knocks Out Hunger meal-packing event happens every summer – but that doesn’t mean we aren’t working to fight hunger all year long here in our county.
One of our BKO Hunger partners, Rolling Harvest Food Rescue, helps make year-long hunger-fighting possible with their collection of fresh produce from local farms. They partner with farmers in the area to establish regular pick-ups of their excess or donated produce and often work with them to expand their production of various crops.
All of these fruits and vegetables are then made available to local pantries through “produce distributions” which happen several times a month. Pantry volunteers and coordinators convene at a certain location – often another pantry or local church – to pick up cases of fresh strawberries and corn, or squash and kale, depending on the season. Produce distributions run throughout the growing season, even up until December!
Many of these collections and distributions are made possible through the support Bucks Knocks Out Hunger provides to Rolling Harvest to cover the cost of purchasing much of the produce. RHFR is able to get produce at a fraction of the cost as a grocery store because much of this food would go to waste if not for this service.
Thanks to this partnership, over 23,000 pounds of fresh, local produce are going to the pantries this year, then into the hands of those who need it the most in our community.
Want to learn more about Rolling Harvest? Check out their blog post from earlier this year.