In a Nutshell: Everyone deserves to eat the rainbow
On summer Sundays, my two year old daughter eats her lunch directly from the garden. We spend our mornings at the Whitefish Community Garden and she waters our bed with her tiny red watering can. Then she embarks on an adventure collecting her own spinach, dinosaur kale and a sand bucket full of snap peas. “Mama, open these.” She finishes her lunch with a handful of eversweet strawberries. Prior to harvest season, she never wanted to eat vegetables. Now she loves her greens.
I am hopeful that one day, all kids can experience delicious, local fresh food this way. However, staggering new statistics from Feeding America show that 1 in 6 children are food insecure in Flathead County. This means that they don’t have access to enough food to live a healthy life. Often, their family’s don’t know where their next meal will come from or their parents skip meals so they can eat. At North Valley Food Bank (NVFB), we believe that everyone deserves to eat the rainbow. All of our neighbors should have abundant access to colorful and fresh food year-round! The more colorful our food is, the more nutritious it is!
During the summer months, NVFB is able to share an abundance of fresh vegetables, most of them from local producers, with our customers. It is a community effort to grow and distribute the rainbow and we get our fresh vegetables from the Whitefish Community Garden, purchase produce from our local farmers, work closely with a beginning farmer and run a Farm to Food Bank program.
Every Wednesday a group of Whitefish Community Garden volunteers harvest vegetables and donate them to the food bank. The garden grows a total of six beds for the food bank and gardeners donate additional produce from their own beds. Last week, they shared chard, peas, lettuce, radishes and a mix of herbs.
In addition to the donated vegetables, NVFB increased our forward contract with Wicked Good Produce in 2024. They procure a wide variety of fresh produce from local farms for us. A weekly order includes, for example, 50 bunches of parsley, 200 bunches of scallions, 100 head lettuces, 200 pounds of broccoli, 100 pounds of cucumbers, 50 pounds of eggplants and 100 bunches of turnips. Through these orders, our Director of Operations, Lauren Jarrold, ensures that we have a variety of fresh products available and that we get everyone’s taste buds excited about local food. The large weekly orders are possible because of funding from our Local Food Purchasing Assistance Grant by the Montana Department of Agriculture. Through this project, NVFB collaborates with Land to Hand MT and FAST Blackfeet to purchase fresh food from and build long-term relationships with under-served producers. The goal is to grow the local food economy in the Blackfeet Nation and Flathead County and to ensure food insecure community members have access to locally grown food.
An exciting new initiative this year is our direct purchasing agreement with Florence from Three P’s Farm, a young beginning farmer. During her first season of farming, we commit to purchase a variety of produce items at a set total value, including 1) produce at market value that she is unable to sell at the weekly Farmer’s Market and 2) produce damaged due to weather or seconds in the field at wholesale value that can be processed to meals at NVFB. This partnership ensures that Three P’s Farm can sell all of her produce, including less desired items by the general public, and can adjust her growing plans in the coming years. Visit Flo and buy some of her delicious produce at the Whitefish Farmers Market on Tuesdays!
Finally, there is an opportunity for everyone to get involved! Our Farm to Food Bank program, formerly known as the Harvesting and Gleaning program, is officially underway! Since 2022, we have partnered with local farms and rescued surplus produce from their fields. This year, we are further strengthening this initiative through new partnerships. With the growth of the program, we are looking for more volunteers! Do you enjoy working outside with your hands in the dirt? You can join NVFB as a Farm to Food Bank volunteer! Your support will benefit both the environment and our community as we prevent food waste, ensure access to fresh, nutritious food for all and strengthen knowledge of our local farms together! If you are interested, please contact localfood@northvalleyfoodbank.org or sign-up through our website.