AmpleHarvest.org Resource Toolkit
for
Local, County, and State Government

AmpleHarvest.org supports the goals you are responsible for including:

• Food security and nutrition
• Public health and chronic disease prevention
• Aging and senior services
• Rural and underserved communities
• Sustainability and waste reduction

It strengthens the local food safety net without adding cost or complexity.

The three simple steps below are

1. First step is reaching out to all food pantries and hunger programs in your community.
2. Next, help local gardeners learn that the solution to hunger is in their back yard.
3. Lastly, inviting local houses of worship to help.  Why?  They house 70% of all food pantries.

Everything you need is right here:

What government can do now

1) Strengthen your local hunger network in a few days, not years

If a food pantry is already on AmpleHarvest.org, ask them to verify and update their information. If they are not on AmpleHarvest.org, urge them to register.  Remind them that it’s free (!) and they don’t need costly refrigeration.  This will help local hunger-relief agencies ensure their public-facing information is accurate and donation-ready.

Start Here:

1. Search here to view local pantries that are on AmpleHarvest.org
2. Ask these food pantries to log in and verify/update their information.
3. Food pantries and other hunger programs in your community that did not appear on AmpleHarvest.org should be urged to register. Share this flier with them
4. Add AmpleHarvest.org to your community resource pages and referral tools. Simply adding “www.AmpleHarvest.org” and a brief description is a great start.
5. Share a short outreach note through Extension, public health, libraries, and local officials. Check the Communications Toolkit in the Quick Links below

2) Reach out and activate local gardeners as “community donors”

Gardeners in your community want to help but do not know where or when to donate surplus harvests. AmpleHarvest.org turns that intention into action by making it easy to donate year after year.

Start Here:

1. Include AmpleHarvest.org in seasonal communications and local meetings (spring planting through fall harvest)
2. Add a short message to newsletters and social channels
3. Help local gardeners learn that April is Plant for Hunger Month and August is Harvest for Hunger Month
4. Share through libraries, schools, houses of worship, community gardens and organizations, local media and Master Gardeners

3) Engage the faith community at scale

Most food pantries are located in a house of worship.  Faith Fights Food Waste, a public education program of AmpleHarvest.org, enables faith leaders across many traditions to give sermons on food waste grounded in their own faith teachings. It promotes community action including helping congregants learn how to donate garden produce locally.   Learn more about this program here

Start Here:

1. Share this flier with local clergy
2. Consider inviting houses of worship to establish their own “giving garden”

Why AmpleHarvest.org works

• Root-cause solution: gardening donations are often blocked by misinformation and missing information, not lack of goodwill
• Sustained impact: Gardeners continue to donate year after year once they know where and when to donate
• No logistics: no costly transportation, volunteer management, or refrigeration needed
• Cost-effective: it leverages food already being grown in the community
• Nonpartisan: appeals to all political persuasions by strengthening local capacity and community wellbeing