It’s spring!
So many of us have spent the winter planning out our gardens - placing seed orders, laying out the garden, and soon we’ll be planting our seedlings. Sometimes our winter plans are a bit bigger than what we can actually eat when the gardens are in peak production and beaming with abundance. We would like to invite you to consider donating some of that surplus produce to your community through our Community Hunger Solutions distribution channels.
Interested? Here are a few more details:
We request that you let us know a day ahead of time if you are planning on dropping off donations. That allows us to make sure that someone is here to receive them. You can connect with us by calling 608-606-9144. The drop-off site is at the Food Enterprise Center at 1201 N. Main St. in Viroqua. If you haven’t been here before, let us know and we’ll help direct you to the drop-off site.
Foods that are always in demand with our partners are tomatoes, beans, fruits, ripe peppers (hot and sweet), storage onions, broccoli, and cauliflower. The majority of the food that we distribute is from local organic farms. We believe that everyone deserves high quality food and we work hard to make that an option for members of our community. Please do not spray donated foods with harmful chemicals.
Food safety is always a priority for our community. Check out our guidelines for safe food handling:
To learn more about food safety in the garden you can click on the link below, which will direct you to a video made by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.
If you haven’t donated surplus garden food to Community Hunger Solutions yet, you can start small! Set out a separate row in your garden to donate to members of the community. Pick up a few extra plants from a local greenhouse that you can grow in your garden and plan to donate to CHS. Extra points if you can include a friend in the joy of harvesting and giving.
Not a big gardener, but you still want to support your community? We also purchase food from local farmers. To help with the costs of purchasing and distributing local produce to community members in need, you can make a financial donation here:
https://www.community-hunger-solutions.org/ (just click donate)
We look forward to working with you. Please reach out to us with any questions (info@community-hunger-solutions.org), and happy growing!
