Photo Credit: Huffington Post/Dirt Magazine

Gary Oppenheimer, the founder and executive director of AmpleHarvest.org, has recently been honored by Arianna Huffington as one of the Huffington Post’s Game Changers for 2011. 

For those of you who don’t know, AmpleHarvest.org is known for its work to diminish hunger in the United States through educating and encouraging gardeners to donate their excess harvest to those in need, and to not let goods go bad.  In addition, the campaign takes one step at a time to eliminate malnutrition in communities across America by supplying food pantries with fresh, healthy produce.

“I’m delighted to let you know that we have chosen Gary Oppenheimer as a Huffington Post 2011 Game Changer — one of the 100 innovators, leaders and artists who are changing the way we look at the world and the way we live in it. (We) would like to honor Gary for his pioneering work to raise awareness about hunger and his groundbreaking, community-based approach towards alleviating it,” Huffington said. 

It was in 2007 with a 40 pound bag of melons, squash, tomatoes and other vegetables, when the light bulb clicked for Oppenheimer to look for a charitable food pantry that would take excess goods.  With little search success, he started AmpleHarvest.org. 

“The point is to get it so that people will find it’s easy and convenient to get in the car and to drop off that bag of tomatoes or carrots or apples, and then to make it a part of their regular routine, hopefully for the rest of their gardening lives,” he said. 

Click here to learn more about Oppenheimer and some of the other “Game Changers,” like Dr. Oz and champion swimmer Diana Nyad. “Game Changers” were honored on Oct. 18 in New York; to see how the night played out, scroll through the slideshow thanks to the Huffington Post. 

Also, for just a little taste of Oppenheimer’s work, read some of our post’s featuring AmpleHarvest.org and the campaign’s good, clean work. 

Congrats Gary and AmpleHarvest.org on the honor and for all of your hard work!

Photo Credit: AmpleHarvest.org

As part of AmpleHarvest.org‘s remembering 9/11 series, read another post from the organization that is helping to diminish hunger in America by educating, encouraging and enabling gardeners to donate their excess harvest to the needy in their community instead of allowing it to rot in the garden. This is just one of many organizations reaching out and paying tribute to the lives lost on 9/11. Please read about its efforts and see how you can help out as well.

On August 27, the President of the United States, in his weekly address, called on Americans to pay tribute to the lives lost on 9/11 by finding a way to do service within their own community.

Today, September 10, you can donate food to a local food pantry.

An estimated 100 billion pounds of food is wasted in America every year. Put another way, 40% of our available food is never consumed. And these statistics never took excess backyard food into account. You can learn about hunger in America, and then you can do something about it.

AmpleHarvest.org is a nationwide campaign to educate, encourage and enable gardeners to donate their excess garden produce to local food pantries. Encouraging your friends, family and collegues nationwide to also donate their excess food can be the most effective way to help more of America’s 50+ food insecure people, many of whom can’t get fresh produce for their families, have access to locally grown nutritious food that might otherwise have been thrown away. 

1. As your tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, etc. ripen, or as your herbs continue to grow, take what you want for yourself and your friends. Preserve what you can. Then harvest the rest and take it to a local food pantry… easily found at AmpleHarvest.org. Got mint or dandelion growing? They may be weeks for you but for someone else, they’re salad fixings.
2. Let your friends who receive food from a CSA know that they can donate their excess/unwanted food to the needy in the community. We have a flyer you can post near the CSA pickup point.
3. For more information on donating your excess garden harvest to a local food pantry, visit our FAQ page.
4. If there is a farmers market in your area, urge the vendors to donate the food remaining at the end of the day to a pantry. You might even want to help them by collecting it and taking it to a nearby pantry yourself.
5. Hosting a special event? A wedding? A confirmation or Bar/Bat Mitzvah? A Holiday meal? Maybe you have been invited to one. Instead of putting out (or bringing) a floral arrangement for a table centerpiece, consider an arrangement of whole fruit. Take it to a food pantry when the event is done. Let it grace your table one day, and feed another family the next.
6. If you are shopping and suddenly hear about a “managers special”, think about buying some of it (or some of the food in the dented can bin) and taking it to a pantry. Use our free Android and iPhone apps to find a pantry near you eager for the donation.

-AmpleHarvest.org

Photo Credit: AmpleHarvets.org

In continuation from our post yesterday, AmpleHarvest.org, an organization helping to diminish hunger in America by educating, encouraging and enabling gardeners to donate their excess harvest to the needy in their community instead of allowing it to rot in the garden, is reaching out and paying tribute to the lives lost on 9/11. Please read about its efforts and see how you can help out as well.

On August 27, the President of the United States, in his weekly address, called on Americans to pay tribute to the lives lost on 9/11 by finding a way to do service within their own community. 

Today, September 9, you can help your own personal network learn about the AmpleHarvest.org campaign.

AmpleHarvest.org is a nationwide campaign to educate, encourage and enable gardeners to donate their excess garden produce to local food pantries. Telling your friends, family and collegues nationwide about AmpleHarvest.org can be the most effective way to help more of America’s 40+ million home gardeners learn about their opportunity to help their neighbors in need.  

1. Please follow AmpleHarvest.org on Facebook and Twitter and encourage your friends to do the same.
    
2. When discussions about poverty, hunger, nutrition or the environment come up at a friends house, in your house of worship, school or just over coffee with friends, let them know that the opportunity to make a difference starts with them, and that AmpleHarvest.org enables them to do it by reaching into their backyard instead of their back pocket.
    
3. The next time you see food being wasted, such as a store throwing away perfectly healthy food, tell them you believe in the AmpleHarvest.org mantra of “no food left behind” and ask them to instead donate it to a local pantry. If they claim that they are not allowed to for legal reasons, tell them they are protected by the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act signed during the Clinton administration. The Act is intended to encourage donations of food to nonprofit organizations while providing the donor with “Good Samaritan” protection. Donors are provided protection from criminal and civil liability providing you did not exhibit gross negligence. The text of the act is at http://www.ampleharvest.org/www.usda.gov/news/pubs/gleaning/appc.htm

 -AmpleHarvest.org

In response to the economic upheaval caused by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, AmpleHarvest.org Inc. has announced that the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign will be focusing its outreach efforts in the Gulf States region for the immediate future.

Since its introduction in May of 2009, the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign, enabling more than 40 million Americans who grow fruit, vegetables, herbs and nuts in home gardens to quickly find a local food pantry eager for their excess garden produce, has rolled out nationwide without any specific geographic focus.

According to AmpleHarvest.org Founder Gary Oppenheimer, “In the past 14 months, all states have received the same amount of attention in our effort to register food pantries while also reaching out to local gardeners. To date, nearly 2,400 food pantries across all 50 states have registered.”

Since the Gulf States regions’ economy has been so severely impacted by the oil spill, many more people will be relying on local food pantries to help feed their families – possibly for years to come. The AmpleHarvest.org Campaign is now working closely with food banks from Texas to Florida to help their local food pantries register at AmpleHarvest.org.  At the same time, AmpleHarvest.org is also working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Master Gardeners and others to help local growers become aware of the opportunity they have to help their neighbors in need.”

According to David Coffman of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana, “AmpleHarvest.org is a tremendous resource to connect food pantries, shelters, and soup kitchens to neighborhood gardeners and farmers. Now, with the ongoing crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, these agencies are experiencing increased demand as families struggle with the uncertainty about their futures and their livelihoods. By using AmpleHarvest.org, agencies and gardeners can provide much needed support through nutritious and high-quality produce.”

With help from a grant from Google Inc., the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign has created a special “ad campaign” targeting regional gardeners to inform them about the opportunity to share their excess harvest with local food pantries.

“The one glimmer of hope in this tragedy is that although it will probably take many years for the Gulf region to fully recover from this, gardeners in this part of the country are able to grow food, and therefore can help out local food pantries, year round,” said Oppenheimer. “For example, LSU AgCenter reports that the state has approximately 349,000 home gardeners. Those gardeners who grow food can make a significant impact on the amount and quality of fresh food available to hungry families.”

Anyone knowing of a food pantry in his or her community should urge the pantry manager to register at AmpleHarvest.org. Food pantries do not need refrigeration for the produce (most produce except for leafy greens will store for several days without refrigeration) and they do not need an Internet connection to take advantage of the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign. There is no cost to the food pantry for participating in the campaign.

AmpleHarvest.org, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization that has received backing and support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Google, Inc., National Gardening Association, the Garden Writers of America, Rotary International, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and numerous faith groups. The AmpleHarvest.org Campaign works to diminish hunger in America by enabling gardeners to easily find a local food pantry eager for their garden bounty. For more information on the campaign visit www.AmpleHarvest.org, call AMPLE-6-9880 (267-536-9880) or follow AmpleHarvest.org on Twitter or Facebook.

On Friday, AmpleHarvest.org announced its 1,000^th food pantry partner in celebration of World Food Day. Since the organization’s inception merely 150 days ago, AmpleHarvest.org has helped reduce hunger for Americans in every state through a grassroots sign-up campaign.

Set up like a small retail store, Rosie’s Place Groceries in Boston became the 1,000^th pantry when it joined the fast-growing food pantry network. Rosie’s provides food for the more than 700 households it serves each month in addition to holiday meal packages distributed in November and December.

AmpleHarvest.org Founder, Gary Oppenheimer, says we can combat hunger in the U.S., using smart, ‘green-living’ methods with existing resources. Through AmpleHarvest.org, millions of backyard gardeners can easily share their excess garden bounty with food pantries across America.

Most pantries are not listed in the Yellow Pages and do not have an Internet presence. To address this, food pantries register their name, phone number, address and optional photograph along with the day(s) of the week produce is accepted from backyard gardeners on the AmpleHarvest.org Web site.

Demands on food pantries across the U.S., have increased dramatically in most areas leaving many food pantries pleading about their nearly bare shelves.

“Our goal is to register at least 500 additional food pantries before the end of the year particularly in the South during the winter months,” said Oppenheimer. “One in eight Americans, equal to the combined populations of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, now rely on pantries to help feed them.” The United Nations further estimates that more than one billion people around the world are undernourished.

“Growing gardens has no age limit. Young children to the elderly can make a difference and share excess produce,” commented Oppenheimer. “Recently, a 12-year-old in North Carolina identified a food pantry via AmpleHarvest.org for a county 4-H community service project resulting in 100 pounds of fresh and organic produce donated by local growers.”

About AmpleHarvest.org
AmpleHarvest.org is an outgrowth of Sustainable West Milford, a 503(c)(1) sustainability organization, which has received support from many groups including the USDA, Google, Inc., National Gardening Association, the Garden Writers of America, Rotary International, VFW, and numerous faith groups. The AmpleHarvest.org campaign is a grassroots effort to diminish hunger in America using existing resources without spending public or private monies, and has registered food pantries in all 50 states. For more information on the campaign visit www.AmpleHarvest.org or call 973-409-4093. You can also follow AmpleHarvest.org on twitter and on Facebook.

About World Food Day
World Food Day (WFD) is a worldwide event designed to increase awareness and year-round action to alleviate hunger. It is observed each October 16^th in recognition of the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).