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About Appeal tribune. (Silverton, Or.) 1999-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 27, 2019)
SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM ❚ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2019 ❚ 3A Harvest How you can help: ❚ Register to volunteer at a Salem Harvest Continued from Page 1A ❚ Host Salem Harvest volunteers on your farm or in your garden A diverse agricultural community In July, Salem Harvest sent group af- ter group of volunteers to harvest Thom- as Barnett’s broccoli in Aurora. Barnett grew the crop for processing, but when harvest time came he couldn’t secure a crew of workers. It made more sense to move on, turning the field over to replant it rather than get behind. Low pollination in watermelons at Northwest Transplants in Molalla left the fruit with hollow heart, an interior air pocket deemed undesirable by dis- tributors. Salem Harvest picked so many they nearly overwhelmed local agencies. Marion Polk Food Share offered water- melon to other food banks throughout the state. Volunteers collected more after Labor Day, perfect fruit ripening despite the idea that consumer whims had moved on from summer flavors to pumpkin spice. Terry Beilke grows ten acres of blue- berries and apples at Beilke Family Far- min Brooks. His family hosts Salem Har- vest volunteers to pick both. “We’ve done this for eight or ten years with them,” Beilke said. “It’s a very good partnership, they’re very well organized, they leave our orchard respectfully and in good shape. Plus we see our fruit go- ing to good use in the community and we appreciate that. Some growers are eligible to receive a 15% Oregon state tax credit for their pro- duce donations, but there’s an intangi- ble payoff, too, as Beilke said, “it’s a good feeling to help people who are hungry and who have other issues.” Onions too small to be picked up by the mechanical harvester, hazelnuts from trees too young to warrant passes with professional equipment and sweet corn from stalks grown to be autumnal decorations; the diverse agricultural community of the Mid-Valley makes Sa- lem Harvest’s work possible. “Our partner agencies have told us that fresh fruits and vegetables are one of the most desirable items,” said Kendra Alexander, Marion Polk Food Share’s Di- rector of Food Resourcing and Ware- house Operations. Salem Harvest’s model of providing “not just fresh pro- duce but also a variety of different kinds of fresh produce has a huge impact on our community.” Salem Harvest isn’t alone in this work. Willamette University students operate the only Oregon chapter of the ❚ Volunteer at Marion Polk Food Share ❚ Give a financial contribution ❚ Make an in-kind contribution of equip- ment or resources Todd Springstead, a volunteer for Salem Harvest, reaches to grab a bag of broccoli being handed to him from the field as people pick them at a broccoli farm near Canby on July 20. Salem Harvest is a nonprofit organization that rescues fresh produce that would otherwise go to waste. KELLY JORDAN/STATESMAN JOURNAL nationwide Food Recovery Network, re- packaging and donating perishable food from campus dining halls. Farmers End- ing Hunger is a similar food rescue or- ganization that specializes in processing fresh food into less perishable formats by canning, freezing, and otherwise packaging them for distribution. “Salem Harvest plays a vital role in terms of being able to go harvest the product straight from the farm,” Alexan- der said. “That’s not something we have the ability to do with our resources.” Bauman credits the partnership be- tween the two organizations as essential to Salem Harvest’s growth. The fact that Marion Polk Food Share provides refrig- eration and handles distribution allows her to focus on the supply side. Sometimes, the organization bypass- es the Food Share, delivering entire bins of food directly to agencies. “That food,” said Alexander, “is liter- ally going from the farm to the pantry into the hands of people who need it.” How does Salem Harvest work? Gleaning is a term often used for the process of on-farm food rescue, but it’s a term Bauman avoids. “When I first started talking to grow- ers they said don’t use that word [be- cause] it has a negative connotation.” Growers thought of gleaners as lacking professionalism, accountability and re- spect. “We want to differentiate ourselves from the historical, typical gleaning or- ganization. We want to be known as a powerhouse, that you can call upon us not to just come out and take a few greens, but to take tons. To get as much done as we can.” “This is why we’re so particular,” she said, “because once one grower has a negative experience of this it’s gonna happen the same way we built it, just faster on the way down.” Founded in 2010, Salem Harvest was originally conceived as a way for garden- ers to help feed the hungry. “If you live in Salem you can literally go on our website and register your tree or your grapevine,” said Bauman, “somebody registered three beds of to- matoes.” The organization scaled up from backyards to farms quickly. In its first season, it diverted 46,278 pounds of food. Nearly ten years since its founding the organization rescues ten times that amount annually. They still harvest from backyard fruit trees, but most harvests represent groups of 20 to 30 volunteers harvesting commercially farmed crops throughout the Mid-Valley. With a few exceptions– quince, fava beans, wine grapes and carving pumpkins–they’ll harvest any- thing that MPFS can distribute. When Bauman gets a call from a grower she makes a trip to the farm to see the crop in question. She assesses quantity and field conditions to ensure that volunteers will be able to manage safely. She also checks the condition of the crop itself, estimating how long it will remain good once it’s on its way to the person who will end up eating it. A few moments on her laptop later, she has listed the harvest details–what, where, when, and the number of volun- teers needed. Sometimes she has a week of warning, but more often she lists vol- unteer opportunities just a day or two before they happen. Some of Salem Harvest’s 3,000 pre- registered volunteers sign up and then show up. The harvest leader explains why a crop is available, what to collect and what to avoid. The organization’s volunteers repre- sent diverse ages, races and socioeco- nomic backgrounds. Parents come with babies strapped to their backs and mul- tiple generations of the same family work together. Regulars get acquainted while working alongside one another. A couple speaks Japanese, another Rus- sian. One family sings while they pick blueberries. The atmosphere at harvests is effi- cient but casual; more focused than the average apple picking trip, but less than that of a team of professionals. A factor that contributes to the or- ganization’s robust volunteer network, said Bauman, is that volunteers are al- lowed to keep a portion of what they harvest for their own use. The general rule is that at least half of what a volun- teer harvests must be donated. It’s an in- centive that helps ensure the human power will be there when the organiza- tion needs it. There are those who abuse the privi- lege. Bauman has had to ask volunteers not to come harvest when they have rou- tinely brought young children to farms with specified age restrictions; when they routinely cancel late or no-show; and when they steal, helping themselves to something not designated for harvest. “For me,” she said, “that’s just a line you don’t cross.” After each harvest, Bauman or anoth- er volunteer truck the food to an agency, usually Marion Polk Food Share. Groups of re-pack volunteers divide contents bulk bins into bags. The Food Share then distributes the food throughout its net- work of member agencies. Often, food rescued by Salem Harvest reaches its end user just days after the grower makes the initial phone call. Non-profit in residence Technically, Salem Harvest has an of- See HUNGRY, Page 3B Z122RKW-42 • 21.5 Gross HP,† Gasoline, Air-Cooled V-Twin Engine • 42” Commercial Mower Deck • Hydro-Gear™ Transmission A.P.R. % 0 , N 0% DOW G FOR UP TO IN * FINANC S E L K C A T A T O B KU ! 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