Columnist’s ‘Plant a Row’ program helps feed nation’s hungry

Mar 15, 2010

Jan Wiese-Fales, Columbia Daily Tribune

Writer and lawyer Jeff Lowenfels has been penning a garden column in the Anchorage Daily News since 1976. Along the way, he had the idea to ask his readers to plant an extra row of vegetables in their gardens to share with the Anchorage, Alaska, soup kitchen, Beans Café. The simple idea was so successful that Lowenfels, who also was the Garden Writer’s Association (GWA) president, persuaded the organization to take it on as a national program. In 1995, “Plant a Row for the Hungry” was born.

This grass-roots, or rather vegetable-roots, program has donated more than 14 million pounds of produce to local food relief organizations across the country over the past 15 years. The need is great — and growing. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 36 million people in this country, one-third of them children, experience daily hunger — that means one in eight households in this country doesn’t have the resources to sit down to a nightly nourishing meal.

The Central Missouri Food Bank, located in Columbia, served more than 95,000 people through various member agencies each month in 2009. Columbia’s Central Pantry location served 10,000 of them, and some of those folks received fresh produce through a local Plant a Row effort organized by the Heart of Missouri Master Gardeners.

Master Gardener Betty Gayle Smith chaired the first committee that initiated a program in Columbia. “We had a meeting at the food bank and learned more about the program from Mr. Jim Wilson,” she said. “We decided that” Heart of Missouri Master Gardeners “would plant a couple of raised beds and donate the food to the food pantry.”

Wilson, who is a former host of the popular PBS “Victory Garden” and a prolific garden writer, lives in Columbia and has served as the GWA national spokesman for Plant a Row.

“It’s been a joy to see stuff that we grow go to people in the community,” Smith said.

“We encourage anyone to donate their garden surplus rather than let it go to waste.”

Smith noted that in February 2004, the group planted a mesclun lettuce mix. “It was beautiful lettuce, and we filled up 12 or 13 trash bags and took it to the food pantry,” she recalled. “Fresh perishable stuff like that is gone in a few hours.”

“I’ve been a Master Gardener since 1996,” Smith said, “but a stroke in 2003 slowed me down, but the more people I can tell about it, the better. I still have the gift of gab.”

Smith continues to participate in the Plant a Row effort as a food chauffeur, driving donated produce to the Central Pantry, now located at 1107 Big Bear Blvd., just east of Range Line Street in the old Orschelns building.

Evette Nissen, a Master Gardner since 2005, assumed chairmanship of the Plant a Row committee. “Last year, we donated over 2,500 pounds of produce to the pantry,” she said, though she speculated it very well could be more because they rely on produce donors to report their poundage.

“I’ve always been interested in gardening. I retired five years ago, and that’s what I do now. I love it,” Nissen said. “I wanted to give back to the community and alleviate hunger. This is an easy way to do that.”

Nissen and the half-dozen members on her committee take weekly turns weeding, watering and harvesting the produce from their two plots. This year the group’s gardens are located in Broadway Christian Church’s community garden, affiliated with Columbia and Boone County’s Community Garden Coalition (CGC), which donates the seeds.

“I wish we had more people who volunteered and more garden space,” Nissen said.

And that’s your cue, gentle readers. Plant a row and share the wealth that grows in your garden with donations to the Central Pantry in Columbia (address above), or to the food bank’s distribution efforts in your locale. Call them at (573) 474-1020 to find out where the closest pantry is located, or start a program of your own. Churches and senior centers are great places to share produce.

If you need help getting your produce to the pantry in Columbia, contact the Boone County Extension office to make arrangements with the Plant a Row group at (573) 445-9792. Nissen said they’d be happy to have you volunteer your time as well.

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