Des Moines Register
12-20-07
Plant for the hungry
BY TERESA KAY ALBERTSON • CONTRIBUTING WRITER • December 20,
2007
Seed by seed, tomato by tomato, Ames area gardeners are making a difference
in the lives of our hungry neighbors. Ames Plant-a-Row for the Hungry started in
2004. That year 4,086 pounds of food was donated. This year, 3,800 pounds of
produce was given to local charities.
"It really depends on the weather," said Ames PAR coordinator Lisa Harmison.
"Last year was a bumper crop for apples. We had 6,420 pounds of produce. But
that late cold snap in the spring hit the apples very hard this year."
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Harmison said the PAR program is making a big impact from just a few area
gardeners. This year 19 area individuals provided produce along with support for
the Farmer's Market, Reiman Gardens and the Iowa State University
Horticulture Research Station.
The Plant-a-Row group donates the produce to Food at First, Bethesda
Community Food Pantry, Mid-Iowa Community Action and ACCESS. The Food
at First is a community meal project at the First Methodist Church in downtown
Ames.
The Ames PAR program started in 2004 when an ISU intern at Reiman Gardens
initiated the effort. Harmison took it over in 2005. Harmison is a gardener and
had heard about the program before it came to Ames.
Plant-a-Row for the Hungry started in 1995 in Anchorage, Alaska. Jeff Lowenfels,
a former Garden Writers Association president, asked local gardeners to plant a
row of vegetables for Bean's Cafe, an Anchorage soup kitchen. Since then the
project has grown to more than 600 communities and at least 31 states and
Canada.
The local PAR planning team will meet in the spring, but Harmison said the
community can expect some elements of the program to remain the same. For
example, this year, produce was accepted at Reiman Gardens Monday mornings
from 7-8:30 a.m. Harmison said she is hoping to expand some programs this
year. For example, recipes are offered with the produce. She is hoping to gather
more easy recipes to give when the produce is donated to area families. She
would also like to translate the recipes into Spanish.
"I just hope gardeners will consider planting an extra row for the hungry in 2008,"
Harmison said. "We'll take anything that you are good at growing. Everything we
get goes to good use. We're not too picky."
More information is available at www.parstory.org.