While there are 50 million people in the United States that are hungry or food insecure, millions of people have a surplus of produce from their home gardens. But because regional food banks don’t accept fresh produce—as food can take days to reach community food pantries—much of this healthy, delicious food is wasted.
Enter Gary Oppenheimer, founder of AmpleHarvest.org—a website that enables gardeners with extra food to donate to food pantries.
“The goal has been to simply make it so that we will do to 40 plus million home gardeners in America what happened to you and me in the seventies when we were told to stop throwing stuff away and begin recycling,” Oppenheimer explains in an interview with Organic Connections. “Not only are we getting food to people who need it, which otherwise would have been wasted, but we are also having an impact on hunger, nutrition, health, and the environment. And it utilizes existing resources, which means it costs America nothing. That’s what it really all boils down to.”
Read more in Organic Connections.
