IFFS On-Farm Stand Now Open!

This past Saturday marked the grand opening of the IFFS On-Farm Produce Stand, which will now be open every Thursday and Friday from noon-6pm and every Saturday from 9am-1pm. We will be selling our organically-grown produce harvested daily from the farm and eggs from our happy, pasture-raised hens. This weekend, the stand overflowed with gorgeous carrots (including the two lovers below), romaine lettuce, curly kale, baby kale (great for kale chips!), swiss chard, braising mix, deliciously peppery arugula,  asparagus, garden peas, green onions, cilantro, and herbs for transplanting.

Also for sale were some homemade items and books made and written by one of our newest volunteers and incubator farmers, Elizabeth Mann.

The stand is located at the corner of Tryon Road and Dover Farm Road (next to the IFFS Teaching Farm at 4505 Tyron Rd) in Raleigh, on the right. Just look for the signs!

If you want to receive a weekly “Availability List” just email Farm Manager Kay Coleman at kay@foodshuttle.org. She will be sending out a list of what we are currently harvesting each Monday.

You can also find our produce and eggs each Saturday morning 8am-noon at the Midtown Raleigh Farmers Market at North Hills Commons.

All proceeds from the sale of this produce goes to support the programs of the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle!

IFFS Produce at Raleigh Farmers Markets!

The Food Shuttle Farm is entering the summer season, and cucumbers are bountiful, as are new potatoes and carrots! New this week: Pea shoots and water cress from our aquaponic system! Did you know that you can buy produce grown on our Raleigh Teaching Farm at two Raleigh farmers markets?  Come see us at the Midtown Farmers Market on Saturdays 8am-noon and the Downtown Raleigh Farmers Market 10am - 2pm on Wednesdays!

We grow local agricultural opportunities for our Young Farmer Training Program and community members in order to create a healthy and secure local food system. Revenues from our farm sales go to the teen apprentices and to fund Inter-Faith Food Shuttle's proactive hunger relief programs!

This week we have:

• Basil – fresh summer flavor
• Lettuce  Mix – Red and green leaf, very pretty and fresh. Spicy mix available, too!
• Water cress – fresh from our aquaponic growing system!
• Pea shoots – bumper crop, 3” tall
• Tri-color Swiss Chard
• Carrots – best in town!
• New potatoes (amazing flavor)
• Yellow Summer Squash – small and tender
• We’ve also got
  • Transplants - tomato, pepper, and basil, grown in leaf  mold and worm casting
  • Soil amendments – red wrigglers to start your own vermicomposting worm bin, worm castings (black gold, the ultimate soil amendment!), and leaf mold (composted and pH neutral)

For more information, contact our farm manager Neal Wisenbaker at Neal@FoodShuttle.org. Look for updates on what's growing at Inter-Faith Food Shuttle's farm and what's available each week at the farmers markets via our Facebook and Twitter!

Farmer Foodshare Challenge

Join the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle in supporting the 3rd Annual Farmer Foodshare Challenge (www.farmerfoodshare.org) at local farmers markets this week from Sept 20-24th! Markets are trying to raise over a ton of fresh food and over $1000 in funds to feed the hungry. Even the Grammy-award winning band, Wilco, and local businesses including Empire Eats restaurants, Locopops and the N&O are jumping on board. Just come on out to your local farmers market this week or on Saturday and buy food and donate it at the Donation Station. The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle will be making sure that all this good food gets to the organizations and people who need it most throughout the Triangle. If you miss the farmers' markets, you can also donate online (www.farmerfoodshare.org/donate) or stop by the Donation Station at the Wilco concert on Sept 27th. Be sure to pick up one a free tote bags to fill with food to donate while you are at market, or at the participating businesses, too! Each year, the IFFS has helped ensure this event is a success and we are happy to support it again this year!

IFFS 20 Year Partnership with NC State Farmers Market Yields Over 50 Million Pounds of Fresh Produce for Local People Facing Food Hardship

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Jun 30, 2011—RALEIGH

Today, Inter-Faith Food Shuttle celebrates its 20 year partnership with the NC State Farmers Market by recovering fresh North Carolina produce, as the Food Shuttle has done six days a week since June 12th, 1991.

The impact of this two-decade partnership is immense -- 50 million pounds of fresh food donated by the farmers, retailers and wholesalers of the NC State Farmers Market delivered to agencies providing food to people in need.

As in most things, it started with one person who wanted to do something good. That person was Barbara Johnson, a farmer from McCullers, NC. Barbara donated one Wednesday afternoon in June 1991 and by the end of the following week, everyone on the Market was participating.

IFFS volunteers would pick up the daily unsellables from the wholesalers and the truckers in the morning and the farmers and retailers in the afternoon. For the first time area soup kitchens and shelters could serve their guests fresh fruits and vegetables -- the most nutritious foods that were impossible to get before Farmer Johnson’s donations.

Jill Staton Bullard, co-founder and one of those original volunteers at the State Farmers Market said, "The summer of 1991 was a critical turning point for us. We had to decide where to spend our energies and we decided to go with fresh foods. Between 1990 and 1991 IFFS experienced a 1,542% increase of food donations because of our partnership with the State Farmers' Market. We went from 12,500 pounds of food recovered from restaurants and grocery stores in 1990 to192,850 in 1991 because of the wonderful donors of fresh fruits and veggies at the NC State Farmers Market. "

"When Jill and I first met we hit it off right off the bat when I worked for the USDA as an egg inspector. She has always been concerned that healthy food reaches people who are hungry instead of being thrown out,” commented Market Manager Ronnie Best. "Because of the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, our farmers are able to do so much more than recycle food. Unsold produce is collected by the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. The Food Shuttle redistributes it to people who are hungry. When food is not fit for human consumption, the Food Shuttle composts it for use on their teaching farm. That way food donations that are not used to feed folks are feeding the soil. This is a great partnership for us and we are happy to join with the Food Shuttle in marking this anniversary.”

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Inter-Faith Food Shuttle pioneers innovative, transformative solutions designed to end hunger in our community.

http://www.foodshuttle.org/

Calling all the garden geeks and plant fanatics!

Are your eyes bigger than your stomach when it comes to planting your garden? Do your friends and family beg you to grow less squash? Convert some of that garden space to feed the hungry! As the spring growing season bursts forth and summer veggies are planted out we are ramping up our Plant a Row for the Hungry program. For the third year we’re asking Triangle gardeners to grow an extra row for Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, or just donate when they have extra fresh produce.

It’s easy to PAR-ticipate!

1. Sign up here or email localproduce@foodshuttle.org.
2. When you have extra produce, deliver it to one of our drop-off sites during scheduled times.
3. We pick it up and deliver it to agencies in our network of more than 200 soup kitchens, food pantries, and mobile free markets in the Triangle. We may also use it in our Culinary Job Training Program or in nutrition classes for low-income communities.

Check our website to find the closest drop-off site to you.

We kicked off PAR in Wake County at Logan Trading Company back in March, and now we are preparing to expand our horizons into Durham and Chatham counties.

Durhamites, join us this Saturday May 7 to kick off Plant a Row in Durham! We’ll be at the Durham Farmers Market all market long, 8 to noon, signing up new PAR members, and also accepting produce donations. Look for us at the center of the market, next to the market info table.

When you sign up you’ll receive a starter kit with compost, seeds, planting guide, coupons to local garden stores, seed potatoes and more, and you’ll be entered into a drawing to win a DFM t-shirt, one of nine 50-pound bags of Black Kow compost from Stone Brothers & Byrd, and two free permaculture consultations with Naked Fruits, a new permaculture design and landscaping business based in Carrboro.

When you sign up for PAR, you can also purchase healthy organic transplants at the market, as well as ask the Master Gardeners your burning gardening questions. PLUS, it’s kids day at the market, and each kid will receive a free seedling.

If you know garden folks across the Chatham county line, tip them off to Plant a Row. We’re launching PAR in Chatham at Chatham Marketplace’s Fifth Birthday Party Saturday May 21, noon – 3 p.m. Expect the same kind of fun times and juicy give-aways!

And now let’s take a moment to remind ourselves why this work is important.

Did you know that in this area low income communities have some of the highest rates of obesity/chronic disease AND hunger in the country—largely due to limited access to healthy, fresh foods? Produce from your farm or garden helps provide access to fresh, nutritious food.

Thanks to our Durham sponsors Stone Brothers and Byrd and Naked Fruits and our partner the Durham Farmers Market! And continued thanks to our Wake partners and drop-off sites Logan Trading Company, Cary Whole Foods, and Western Wake Farmers Market.

Western Wake Farmers' Market

Western Wake Farmers' Market is no stranger to the Food Shuttle. Remember the Thanksgiving Food Drive they hosted earlier this year? Well, some great folks from Western Wake Farmers' Market came out to the Food Shuttle more recently and wrote this excellent post on their website. Michele McKinley kindly let us re-post it here. Enjoy!

Partnering with the Food Shuttle to Fight Hunger Locally

by Michele McKinley

Last week, several members of the Western Wake Farmers’ Market team toured the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle (IFFS) in Raleigh to learn more about its programs and see how the farmers’ market and our community can do more to help feed those in need.After spending just about an hour there, we had a very good sense of the amazing work the staff and about 1,000 volunteers are doing there, not to mention the tremendous need. The IFFS received –and distributed—6 million pounds of donated food last year, according to Katherine Andrew, MPH, RD, LDN, who serves as Director of Nutrition for IFFS. (Katherine is photographed with young tour particpants.) The Food Shuttle is one of seven food banks in our state, and it serves seven counties. In Wake County alone, more than 67,000 are living in poverty and unable to feed themselves healthy food.

Focus on Fresh, Healthy Foods IFFS is different from other foods banks in that it specializes in perishable food items, such as fruits and vegetables, breads, baked goods and eggs. Katherine estimates that about 80 percent of its donations are perishables because the organization’s focus is on recovering nutritious foods and getting it to those who need it. With the annual value of lost food (food waste) estimated at some $31 billion, food “recovery” is a priority for the Food Shuttle. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 49 million people could be fed by those lost food resources.

The IFFS warehouse is fairly small compared to other food banks because many foods donated do not return to the warehouse. Rather, they are picked up and then distributed that same day to the agencies the Food Shuttle works with, such as shelters, food pantries, community centers and children’s after school programs. IFFS picks up and delivers foods 6 days a week, and has 11 refrigerated trucks to facilitate that work. Among those donating perishable foods are local grocery stores, restaurants and farmers’ markets like WWFM. Non-perishable foods are also donated through food drives, such as the one our market held in the fall.

Programs to Feed and Educate IFFS runs a growing number of programs to meet the growing demand for food assistance. Among its many programs are: 1) Backpack Buddies: serving some 700 children, backpacks filled with 6 meals and 2 healthy snacks are sent home with kids on Friday so they will have food to eat over the weekend. 2) Culinary Job Training Program: an intensive 11-week program for the under- and unemployed to train them in basic cooking skills, as well as practicing for interviews and writing resumes. 3) Operation Frontline: in partnership with Share our Strength, 4- to 6-week cooking classes that emphasize preparing healthy meals. 4) Farm and Community Gardens: a garden on-site, a farm on Tryon Rd. and two community gardens are underway to provide local access to nutritious foods and education about the economic and health benefits of growing your own food.

Behind the Scenes Western Wake Farmers’ Market organizers will work with Inter-Faith Food Shuttle staff over the winter to see how we can expand our market’s donations and increase our community’s involvement during the 2010 market season.

In the meantime, spend a few minutes exploring the Food Shuttle’s web site and its blogs, and become a fan on its Facebook page for updates and information about the many ways our community can help.

Week of Giving @ Farmers Market

As we tweeted earlier this week, the State Farmers Market will host its “Week of Giving” to benefit the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle Sunday, Dec. 6, through Saturday, Dec. 12, in the Market Shoppes. Shoppers are invited to leave non-perishable food items under the Giving Tree, as well as make monetary donations. Read more here. Here's Cece out at the Giving Tree, as well as a message from a special guest.