Notes from the field…trip!

Today’s notes from the field will be replaced by “Notes from the Field Trip!”

Every Monday I get to the farm at 7:00 am in order to pack up our donations for FoodLink. The whole process takes over an hour as we weigh and box everything we donate in order to make sure we hit our annual goal for donations, at least 10% of what we grow. Today we donated just over $1900 of produce. By 8:15 am Howard, a volunteer from FoodLink, pulls up and takes hundreds of pounds of produce out to be distributed to community centers, care facilities, and food banks. This process happens twice a week, and usually that’s the entire role we play in our food donation efforts. However, this week our farm staff took a field trip and joined one of the two organizations we donate to, FoodLink, to help out and see where our vegetables end up.
To accommodate our large group, we split up into two teams and joined FoodLink at two different Whole Foods to help sort and pack donations from the grocery store. We found that just like Lexfarm, the bulk of the work gets done because of volunteers and staff working together. We took everything from fresh produce, to frozen meals and sorted them into the FoodLink truck.  We then went over to our respective destinations and found a host of great directors and leaders excited to receive the food. In my case, we took donations to the Medford Senior Center, and spent a great amount of time talking to an employee at the center about a collaboration between the elders she works with and a local elementary school. We swapped tips and tricks and got to put a face to the organization we work so closely with.
If you’d like to find more information on the organizations we donate to, click on the links below:
http://www.foodlinkma.org/
https://lovinspoonfulsinc.org/