12/04/2012
Come join the Society of St. Andrew, Leadership Huntsville and the Foodbank of North Alabama for a sweet potato drop Thursday Dec 6th.The event will be at the Space and Rocket center. One session will be from 10 - 12, a second session will be from 12:30 to 2:30.
Food & Farming News & Events
A key aim of the Food Policy Council is to bring people together and support collaboration among stakeholders across the food system.
Here is important news about how the Food Bank of North Alabama, Leadership Huntsville and Society of St. Andrew are working together to ensure local, fresh produce does not go to waste and instead makes it onto the plates of friends and neighbors in north Alabama who need it most.
The Cullman County Sweet Potato Growers Association is donating 20,000 lbs. of sweet potatoes to help those facing hunger in North Alabama, and the challenge is to bag these potatoes - enough for 60,000 servings - in a single day.
Food Policy Council members are invited to be a part of this significant event!
Society of St. Andrew, Leadership Huntsville and Food Bank of North Alabama will come together to bag sweet potatoes on Thursday, December 6th from 10 am-3 pm in the parking lot of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center (see the attached map). Food Policy Council members are invited to join anytime during the day.
No special skills are required - just bring your gloves, some drinking water and a desire to help others. In case of bad weather we will relocate to UAH campus on the back loading dock of the Student Center.
Contact Mary Lynn Botts, 256-658-7555 if you need additional information or have questions.
Why This Event is Significant
Twenty-five years ago, the Food Bank routinely received truckloads of donations from local producers. Due to national farm policy, though, the Food Bank’s relationships with local farmers waned in the early 1990’s when many north Alabama farmers lost their farms or quit vegetable production. Today two-thirds of fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S. come from outside the country. According to a recent study commissioned by the Food Bank, residents in north Alabama now spend 2.2 billion dollars a year on food produced outside of our region.
To address this issue, the Food Bank started its Community Food Security program in 2009 to support local farmers and local foods for all. “Keeping local farmers farming is key to food security and economic development in our region,” says Anita Daniel, the Food Bank’s Community Food Security Director.
The Food Bank supports programs such as the North Alabama Food Policy Council, the Fresh Food Initiative, a loan fund for farmers and a pilot program matching local growers to local buyers like restaurants and cafeterias. Through these initiatives the Food Bank met Clark Haynes and the Cullman County Sweet Potato Growers Association. Clark and the other farmers in the Association, including Brett Haynes, Keith Smith, Kim Haynes and Brian Kress, wanted to find a way to give back by donating perfectly good sweet potatoes that do not meet the size requirements of their customers.
They offered 20,000 pounds of sweet potatoes during the holiday season, but the Food Bank needed community support to sort and bag the volumes of loose sweet potatoes in order to distribute them to feeding programs across north Alabama. The Food Bank reached out to the Society of St. Andrew (SOSA), a hunger relief organization which gleans fresh produce from farms all across the country and has an office here in north Alabama. SOSA, in turn, called Leadership Huntsville. “This collaboration and community-wide involvement makes this farm to plate journey possible,” says Kathryn Strickland, Executive Director of the Food Bank of North Alabama.
“Local food back at the Food Bank is a watershed moment – it means that north Alabama is producing more fresh, healthy food choices right here at home,” says Strickland. “We want everyone to have access to wholesome, local food choices – particularly our region’s most vulnerable citizens.”
In addition to programs supporting local farmers, the Food Bank distributes food to over 100,000 people in north Alabama (an increase of 21% since 2008) through partnerships with over 200 feeding programs.
Mark Your Calendar For Other Upcoming Food & Farming Events
· February 18th, 2013, Local Food Dialogue, Marriott-Shoals Hotel, Muscle Shoals, AL, Time TBA
· January 23-26, 2013, Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference, Little Rock, AR
· February 8-9th, 2012, Alabama Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association Conference, Auburn, AL
