Produce that would otherwise be unused given to food pantries, school programs
People get hooked on Farm to Pantry, according to Program Director Dani Wilcox. Farm to Pantry is a community connector, a nonprofit organization that draws lines between diverse elements of Sonoma County, which is underscored during the harvest season.
Three days each week, volunteers and staff from Farm to Pantry drive out from a meeting spot to pick apples from a small grove west of Healdsburg, tomatoes at Front Porch Farm, or almost any other produce “from A-to-Z,” according to Wilcox.
“It’s such a win-win for everyone in the community,” said Executive Director Connie Newhall. “We’ve harvested 150 tons of produce that would have been plowed under. We’re grassroots and small but we’re strong.”
These people are gleaners, harvesting produce that otherwise would go to waste.
They pick apples, apricots, artichokes, arugula, Asian pears, asparagus, avocados, basil, beans, beets, blackberries, bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, “I mean it keeps going on,” Wilcox said.
“We’re gleaning at a farm or a backyard at no cost to that person,” Wilcox said. “Farmers don’t have the resources to pay their employees to pick produce that’s going to be donated.
It might have gone into the trash or the compost, but not to a person.”
Through the efforts of Farm to Pantry, the produce goes to people in need, at no cost.
“Wherever we take the produce, we make sure that it’s not being charged for,” Wilcox said.
The produce ends up at a variety of locations throughout the county. Food is delivered to the Healdsburg Food Pantry, the Windsor Food Pantry, the Redwood Empire Food Bank, Boys & Girls Clubs, Windsor school district after-school programs, the Interfaith Church in Sebastopol and many others. Part of the Farm to Pantry model is to have its picker volunteers also deliver the produce.
“That really completes the circle,” Wilcox said. “There are children waiting for their box of tomatoes or there are seniors waiting at the Luther Burbank senior housing area. They’re there in their wheelchairs waiting for their deliveries on Saturdays after the farmers’ market pickup. It’s great for the volunteers to see that, with the experience going full circle and when I say, ‘You get hooked on Farm to Pantry,’ that’s what I mean.”
The whole object of the effort is to get food that might have otherwise gone to waste, into the hands of people who will eat it.
But it’s not solely about going out into the fields and picking, or collecting unused produce after farmers’ markets; the group also throws annual events such as its big tomato canning.
This year, on Oct. 7, some 35 volunteers gathered at the Healdsburg High School culinary kitchen and processed 2,200 pounds of tomatoes into sauce.
The 2017 event marked the group’s eighth canning event, which has grown, with more people volunteering each year and more tomatoes getting canned, according to Wilcox.
Helping in the kitchen with cooking and blending tomatoes at the event was Tim Wilcox, Dani’s husband.
As head of food and beverage at River Rock Casino, when he’s not busy managing the casino’s extensive menus and wine lists, Tim is also a regular volunteer with Farm to Pantry, but the ties go both ways.
While wildfires burned above Alexander Valley and casino operations were shut down, Tim and more volunteer help from Farm to Pantry were serving food at the evacuation shelter at Foss Creek Community Center in Healdsburg on Oct. 11.
They also rallied to serve a hot lunch to more than 70 firefighters and helicopter crews at the Healdsburg Municipal Airport on Oct. 19.
After serving hundreds of Oktoberfest Soft Tacos with German pulled pork, a strawberry shrub glaze with mustard and caraway seeds, the volunteers had a chance to get close and personal with one of the helicopters, the S-64E Sikorsky Skycrane.
Gratitude flowed both ways between the helicopter crews and the Farm to Pantry volunteers.
“You guys knocked it out of the park,” said pilot Roger Douglass.
