Volunteers are needed in Springfield to help Ozarks Food Harvest provide fresh produce for those in need. KSMU’s Michele Skalicky has more.
East of Springfield near Rogersville is about one and a half acres with 76 raised garden beds and two high tunnels for growing.
It’s harvest season now, and there’s plenty to gather. The food grown here goes to the two senior centers in Springfield.
The garden is part of the Full Circle Gardens program at Ozarks Food Harvest, which works to localize food production, encourage socioeconomic development and improve food access to solve food insecurity, according to the food bank’s community engagement coordinator, Christy Claybaker. The program also partners with local farms and gardens.
"To go on their property to help them harvest food that may be going to waste because they harvested all they needed, and they didn't need anymore and so our volunteers would come out and help rescue anything that was still in the field," she said.
As a whole, the Full Circle Gardens program has produced close to 75,000 pounds of fresh food this year. This garden east of Springfield, on land donated for use by Ozarks Natural Foods last year, has yielded about 1,000 pounds of food this year, and Claybaker said they hope to meet a goal of 10,000 pounds by the end of the growing season.
"Right now we have tomatoes and peppers and green beans and squash and zucchini, and we also have some sweet potatoes planted out here," she said.
The program wouldn’t be possible without volunteers who call themselves the Glean Team.
Ozarks Food Harvest serves around 200 hunger relief agencies in the Ozarks who benefit from the Glean Team’s efforts. Claybaker describes the fresh produce the Full Circle Gardens program provides as “very important” to what the food bank offers.
"We have a strategic initiative to distribute at least 25 percent of our total pounds that we distribute annually, which is over 16 million, to be produce. We have a really great healthy food initiative and so this supports that healthy food initiative by being able to provide fresh food," she said.
This particular morning, six volunteers were hard at work weeding and harvesting. They come two days a week to help out. And OFH also relies on large groups coming in once or twice a month to help weed and clean up.
Kacey Davis has been helping out since the Full Circle Gardens program’s beginning in 2014, and before that she helped in the food bank’s warehouse.
"And then when I found out about the Glean Team, I just--I love gardening, and I love being outside, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to volunteer and do something fun outside," she said.
Claybaker said they need even more volunteers like Davis. Anyone can help, according to Claybaker. All volunteers need to have, she said, is a willingness to get dirty.
"You don't have to have any special skills. We'll show you everything they need to do out here. We have all the tools and gloves and everything. We just need people to show up," she said.
Volunteers meet at the garden Monday and Thursday mornings during the growing season. And Claybaker said they also need people willing to help harvest produce at OFH’s four farm and garden partners. Thursday evenings from 5:30 to 7:30, volunteers work at the Victory Garden in Strafford run by Second Baptist Church.
"And then, of course, we support a lot of the local farmers around here. If they have a need for an emergency glean--they need support getting crops out of the field, then we'll join Dan over at Fassnight Creek Farm, and we've been out to Erwin Farms and also Lewis Family Garden and also Urban Roots Farms, so we're here to help whenever they give us a call," she said.
Davis encourages people to help. She said it’s really rewarding to know you’re making a difference in the community.
"One day I went over to the senior center and, you know, took over some vegetables, and they were really grateful to have that for their lunches for the seniors. It's nice to know that you're feeding the community--people that need help," she said.
Anyone who’d like to help out just needs to fill out an application at ozarksfoodharvest.org/volunteer and select “gardening” as a skill.
