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AmpleHarvest.org - Information for the Press and Media
The AmpleHarvest.org Campaign is a nationwide effort to diminish hunger in America by enabling millions of backyard gardeners to easily find a local food pantry eager for their excess garden bounty.
Currently there are 2,593 food pantries across all 50 states registered on AmpleHarvest.org, and more are signing up every day.
AmpleHarvest.org has received support and backing from Google Inc., the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rotary Int'l, VFW, the National Gardening Association, Garden Writers of America as well as numerous faith organizations. It is available to food pantries and gardeners at no charge.
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Please note the the proper use of the name for the campaign is either "AmpleHarvest.org" or "AmpleHarvest.org Campaign". The name of the non-profit running the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign is "AmpleHarvest.org, Inc."
We would appreciate it if you would avoid the using the two word expression "Ample Harvest" when referring to AmpleHarvest.org as it is not the correct name and is likely to confuse your readers/viewers/listeners.
Thank you.
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Press Contact:
Gary Oppenheimer
Telephone:
AMPLE-6-9880
(267-536-9880)
Email:
gary@AmpleHarvest.org
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When AmpleHarvest.org web site was first released in May of 2009, approximately 38 million Americans were listed as food insecure (defined as people who either do not have enough or are at real risk for not having enough food for their family).
According to US government statistics released only six months later, that number increased to nearly 49 million people, or one out of every six Americans; this despite the fact that America looses/wastes almost 100 billion pounds of food a year, or about one pound per person per day according to the New York Times.
To put this in perspective, the number food insecure people in America exceeds the populations of Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia - added together.
These people often rely on one of the estimated 30,000 to 40,000 local food pantries in America to help meet the nutritional needs of their families. (Note.... in some parts of the country, a food pantry is referred to as a food shelf, food closet, food cupboard or food bank)
In most communities a food pantry is typically located in a house of worship or similar community building. Usually run by volunteers, these pantries are the final distribution point for food and household items (such as toiletries, diapers, paper goods, etc.) available to those most needing it. Although they are in nearly every community in the country, people in the area who do not need assistance from the food pantry rarely where it is located.
Food pantries receive the bulk of the food they distribute from periodic deliveries provided by large regional warehouse operations called food banks. The majority of these food banks are part of a nationwide network operated by Feeding America (www.feedingamerica.org).
Unlike your local supermarket whose daily food deliveries allows it to stock and sell fresh produce, the less frequent deliveries by food banks means that only canned fruit and vegetables can usually be provided to most food pantries.
Because canned vegetables are often processed with extra salt and fruit with a sugary syrup, either of which can contribute to future health problems (high weight or blood pressure, diabetes, etc), some writers have suggested that the availability of fresh produce at food pantries through the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign may help to lower the future health care costs in America.
While 49 million Americans are food insecure, more than 40 million Americans, according to the National Gardening Association, grow vegetables, fruit and herbs in their backyard, rooftop, patio and windowsill gardens.
A typical gardener plants their seeds or seedlings and then eagerly waits to begin the harvesting. As the growing season progresses, there will often be a far larger harvest than the gardener can use, preserve or give away to friends.
Historically, most gardeners have disposed of the excess produce, composted it, or left it to rot in their garden.
The AmpleHarvest.org Campaign web site provides these gardeners with the opportunity to instead easily find a local food pantry within a specified driving distance that is eager for their garden bounty.
A gardener overwhelmed with a bountiful harvest can go to the AmpleHarvest.org site to find pantry on the Find A Pantry page. They simply enter their home address or zip code and the number of miles they are willing to travel to a pantry.
AmpleHarvest.org displays a listing of food pantries, sorted by distance, along with a Google map.
Once the pantry has been selected, AmpleHarvest.org displays the desired day[s] of the week and time[s] of day when the pantry can accept donations. It will also show a photograph of the pantry (if provided) along with Google driving instructions from the gardener's location to the food pantry. Click here to see an example of what the gardener might see.
Gardeners who share their garden bounty with a food pantry are encouraged to email IShared@AmpleHarvest.org to let us know what and how much was donated.
Donating through AmpleHarvest.org is not limited just to backyard gardeners. Millions of Americans grow tomatoes, cucumbers, berries and other foods on their patio or rooftop. Even urban dwellers find that they can easily grow herbs (fresh chives, parsley, mint, and other herbs are particularly appreciated by pantry clients) in windowsill gardens. Lastly, many food pantries use AmpleHarvest.org to list those store bought items (canned foods, paper goods, toiletries, etc.) they are most in need of, making AmpleHarvest.org helpful to shoppers as well as gardeners.
AmpleHarvest.org is an opt-in directory - only those pantries that choose to participate or are registered by their managing food bank will appear. Since most food pantries find that the garden produce is quickly taken by their clients - often within hours of delivery by the gardeners, refrigerated storage at the pantry is rarely an issue. Food pantries, almost always struggling to meet an ever growing need for food assistance, greatly appreciate the community support AmpleHarvest.org enables them to receive.
AmpleHarvest.org continues to reach out to food pantries across the nation, encouraging them to take advantage of the generosity of the local gardeners. The outreach is done through the food banks, service and faith organizations as well as social networking such as Twitter and Facebook. Several emailable and faxable informational fliers for food pantries are available here. Anyone who knows of a food pantry in their community is strongly encouraged to forward the appropriate flier to the food pantry manager for their review.
At the same time, AmpleHarvest.org continues to encourage millions of gardeners across America to visit the site to find a local food pantry and to be generous with their donations when they harvest their gardens. The outreach to the gardeners is done on the Internet (thanks to a very generous grant from Google.com), Master Gardeners nationwide, and social networking such as Twitter and Facebook. Lastly, we encourage everyone to post a one page flier available here in their local garden shop, supermarket bulletin board or in any other conspicuous location to help inform those gardeners who have not yet heard about AmpleHarvest.org.
Although many Americans are themselves suffering from economic difficulties, the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign enables gardeners to help diminish hunger in their community by reaching into their back yard instead of their back pocket.
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Shortly after I became the director of the West Milford Community Garden in late 2008, I learned that some of our garden plot holders -- like millions of backyard gardeners nationwide -- left large amounts of their garden produce unharvested when they grew more than they could possibly use.
Aware that hunger is a problem in our community, I suggested that we created a committee that would help to gather this extra food and deliver it to local food pantries. The program was named Ample Harvest.
Food pantries however were hard to find, in large part because most operate without an Internet site or yellow page listing. Google for example listed the nearest food pantry as being in a town 25 miles away, even though our own town had several of them. And it turns out this same challenge was faced by backyard gardeners nationwide wishing to share their bounty.
To address this dilemma, we created the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign to provide a way for millions of backyard gardeners with extra garden produce to find local food pantries. In doing so, gardeners could share their excess garden bounty and, garden-by-garden, help diminish hunger in America.
Initially conceived of in March 2009, with the help of two volunteer web designers (one of whom is a former food pantry client), the AmpleHarvest.org site was created and tested starting in April 2009.
Seven weeks later on May 18, 2009, AmpleHarvest.org was rolled nationally.
AmpleHarvest.org received enthusiastic support and backing from Google.com, the USDA, Rotary International, VFW, numerous faith groups as well as many media outlets and food/hunger bloggers.
We reached out to food pantries across the country through social networking, food banks, Master Gardeners, faith organizations, and many other groups.
In August of 2009, the National Gardening Association partnered with AmpleHarvest.org to help inform its members about the campaign. On October 16, 2009 (World Food Day), only 150 days after its initial roll out, AmpleHarvest.org announced that the 1,000th food pantry ("Rosie's Place Groceries" in Boston, MA) had joined the campaign.
In October 2009, the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions gave AmpleHarvest.org its 2009 Environmental Achievement Award.
In December 2009, at the recommendation of United Way, AmpleHarvest.org started to provide online resources to help individuals who had come to AmpleHarvest.org in need of food assistance.
In May 2010, AmpleHarvest.org Founder Gary Oppenheimer was named "CNN Hero" on the Larry King Live show for his anti-hunger work in creating and promoting AmpleHarvest.org to food pantres and gardeners nationwide.
In August 2010, as part of its effort to diminish the environmental impact of food waste, the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign was listed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a food rescue resource.
To promote its goal of enabling as many backyard gardeners as possible to donate excess garden produce to as many food pantries as possible, the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign pursues two separate tracks simultaneously:
- To encourage food pantries across America to join the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign (it is free). Currently, there are 2,593 food pantries registered on the site (you can view a nationwide map of all registered food pantries by clicking here).
- To inform the more than 40 million (from a study by the National Gardening Association, available by clicking here) Americans who grow vegetables, fruit and herbs, that they can donate their extra garden bounty to a local food pantry.
Everyone involved in the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign has donated their time and talent. The team supporting the campaign includes two web designers, a social networking expert, a PR specialist, a SEO (search engine optimization) expert and a Google Analytics expert. A number of other people have donated legal, non-profit management, food bank/pantry and marketing expertise and talent.
AmpleHarvest.org, Inc. operates as a non-profit organization registered in the State of New Jersey. There are no costs to the food pantries or the gardeners for use of the site. |
The AmpleHarvest.org FAQ page is divided into three sections - General Questions, Food Pantry Questions and Backyard Gardener Questions
It covers additional information not included on this page. |
| The AmpleHarvest.org has received a good deal of very positive feedback since it rolled out. A sample of these comments can be seen here. |
Bio:
Gary Oppenheimer is a Master Gardener, Rutgers Environmental Steward, former community garden director, Environmental Commissioner in northen New Jersey, an avid gardener and long distance cyclist.
A computer geek from the 1970s and early pioneer in the electronic mail industry, he is Founder and Executive Director of AmpleHarvest.org, Inc. and was introduced on Larry King Live as a "CNN Hero" in May 2010 for creating the AmpleHarvest.org Camapign and for sucessfully rolling it out on a national scale.
In addition to helping AmpleHarvest.org continue its expansion to food pantries and gardeners nationwide, Gary also does public speaking about hunger and the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign, individuals making a difference in their community as well as a variety of topics on the environment. |
| Read/watch CNN Heroes report on Gary Oppenheimer
here. |
| Listen to the interviewed with Gary Oppenheimer by the Get Inspiried Project in 2009
here. |
Several AmpleHarvest.org graphics are available for use with your article. Please contact info@AmpleHarvest.org for questions about use of the AmpleHarvest.org graphics or logo.
Please see the Terms of Use page for information describing the protection of "AmpleHarvest.org" as well as the below graphcs.
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AmpleHarvest.org widgets are available here. |
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