By Lindsey Cox—
MUNCIE, Ind.—The Food Council of East Central Indiana is spearheading a project this growing season in Delaware, Blackford, and Jay counties: Grow-a-Row. The project encourages local gardeners to donate excess garden produce to community partners that can distribute the produce to neighbors in need.
Gardeners can purposefully Grow-a-row specifically for donation. Or, gardeners can also choose to donate their extra produce at the point in the summer when they’ve got so many veggies, they don’t know what to do with them all. These can be home gardens, community gardens, school gardens, etc. Interested gardeners can indicate their participation by filling out this survey to stay up-to-date with any information released.
Community groups that are interested in distributing the donated produce are requested to indicate participation using the same survey link. These could be groups such as food pantries, free meal sites, and more.
As gardener and community site information is gathered, a sheet will be created to inform gardeners of the sites that will accept the produce donations, as well as other information like site location, contact information, and what days/times donations can be dropped off.
For tracking purposes, it is requested that donation sites keep a record of donations, such as weights of the produce donations, types of produce donated, number of donors, etc. The data collected will be used to evaluate the effectiveness and success of Grow-a-Row, and to support future grant funding requests to potentially expand and support the program.
Check out the Grow-a-Row social media post by Purdue Extension Delaware County, to reshare and spread the word. Also share this MuncieJournal.com article using the social media buttons at the bottom of this page.
The Food Council of East Central Indiana is part of the Healthy Community Alliance, a coalition through IU Health East Central Region hospitals serving Delaware, Blackford, and Jay counties. The Food Council group meets virtually via Microsoft Teams on the 4th Tuesday each month from 4-5pm. All are invited and can request an invitation by contacting John Disher.
Learn more about other HCA workgroup meetings in all 3 counties by visiting this page of the website. Community partners can join the alliance (for free) to grow their own networks and to help influence their own audiences to eat better, move more, and not use tobacco. The annual HCA All-partner Meeting and Recognition is coming up on June 13th at Minnetrista Museum & Gardens. The meeting will take place in-person or participants can join using an online option.
Questions about Grow-a-Row and the Healthy Community Alliance can be directed to John Disher, jdisher1@iuhealth.org.
