Volunteers help Dale City farmers market donate produce to pantries

As the Dale City farmers market wound down on a recent Sunday, brightly colored fruits and vegetables lingered on tables, the smell of freshly popped kettle corn started to wane, and the park ranger’s whistle blew to alert shoppers and vendors that only 15 minutes remained until closing.

The shoppers thinned out, and the farmers began to pack up their wares. But one group was just getting started. Volunteers from the Virginia Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardeners program gathered in the lane between the parking lot and the market, ready to spring into action.

Typically, once the whistle blows, the volunteers fan out, distributing empty plastic crates to farmers who want to donate leftover produce to local food pantries through the VCE’s Plant a Row program. About four volunteers each week fill and collect the crates and then help load them onto three trucks donated by Vulcan Materials Co., which also pays its drivers to haul the food. Two of the trucks take the produce to ACTS Food Pantry in Dumfries; the third delivers food to SERVE in Manassas. SERVE also gets donations from the Thursday farmers market in Manassas.

Advertisement

“At ACTS, they have a very large refrigerator at the back of the building,” said Patti Thompson, a master gardener who is in charge of the Plant a Row program at the Dale City market. “We fill it every week when the produce is in season.”

Thompson said the VCE collects food from vendors every Sunday from April through the weekend before Thanksgiving. They give the vendors receipts that they can use to write off a portion of the donations on their taxes.

Through August of this year, vendors donated about 81,500 pounds of food to the shelter, according to Tara Jennings-May, a public relations specialist for ACTS. That has helped 12,368 visitors to the pantry between April and August, Jennings-May said. And the timing is crucial. During the summer, demand for food increases because families whose children receive free and reduced lunch and breakfast at school are trying to make up for those meals.

Advertisement

“It’s invaluable,” Jennings-May said. “We’re so thankful for the farmers market, the VCE and all they do for the community and the pantry.”

Eboni Nichols, the director of the food pantry at ACTS, said that the food is bagged and distributed to the families that use the service. So in addition to nonperishable pantry staples, each family is getting a bag of fresh produce from the farmers market. That could include greens, watermelon, peaches, tomatoes, squash and apples. They also set up a table outside where people can get additional produce, Nichols said.

Not all of the vendors at the market donate, Thompson said. But some—G. Flores, Dodson’s, Barajas, Grace’s Pastries, Great Harvest, Roberto’s, and Medina and Sons, for example—give hundreds or thousands of pounds every week, she said.

“The vendors recognize us, and they know it’s not going to go to waste,” said Nancy Berlin, natural resource specialist for VCE.

Advertisement

Vanessa Ramirez runs the cash register at the stand for G. Flores. Her future in-laws, Veronica and Gerardo Flores, own a farm in Hague, on Virginia’s Northern Neck. Ramirez said the Plant a Row program that benefits the food pantries also helps the farmers, because they don’t have to reload all of the leftover produce, haul it home, then take it to a donation center the next day.

Roberto Medina, from Roberto’s in Westmoreland, agreed.

“It’s good for everybody,” Medina said. “We have less work when we get home and have to unload, and people get use out of it.”

Nonperishable food donations can be dropped off at the ACTS Food Pantry, 3900 ACTS Lane, Dumfries, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, or from noon to 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays. The pantry also accepts financial donations, which are used to shop sales and buy in bulk.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLmwr8ClZq%2BnnKq7tbHEq6pmoJWhvW6wwKWcZpuZqcZussCrpJ6qo2K6or7KnqtmnJ%2BjrrWxjKmpqJylmLJuwM5mp5qmpKe2pr%2BOa2dqbF9lhnB8lGicm51laYZyhIxsa21xXWZ%2BpoCMcpxyal1lhXqFwWxnb5qSmq6gv9OoqbJmmKm6rQ%3D%3D