Veggie Rescue seeking more food donors across Santa Barbara County
SOLVANG, Calif. - Daphne Phillipis is collecting fresh produce at the Santa Ynez Valley Farmers Market in Solvang.
“This helps me because I don’t have to get it at the grocery store and it’s just great vegetables here. I mean, they're sometimes even better than the grocery store," said Phillipis.
Thanks to nonprofit Veggie Rescue, this farmers market is able to provide fresh produce to those in need.
"There are people who I hear all the time when they think that there’s enough food … no, I don’t. there may be enough food for you … but for families who can’t afford rent and utilities, no. There’s not. We have to feed people," said CEO Pam Gnekow of Santa Ynez Valley Community Outreach.
Veggie Rescue is seeing the demand for services exceeding its supplies across Santa Barbara County.
"Especially with inflation the price of groceries is just out of control which makes what we do even more important to provide families with healthy food," said operations coordinator Peter Litwiler of Veggie Rescue.
Right now Veggie Rescue is supplying produce for 45 nonprofits, and they’re trying to keep up with increasing demands.
"We have free refrigerator trucks … we're all over the county … we’re saving a food from farmers and food business," said development director Christine Franke of Veggie Rescue.
"They are so valuable because they take produce that are out in the field that are gonna go bad. we don’t go bad here," said Gnekow.
65 percent of Veggie Rescue’s partners are asking for more produce due to community needs.
So leaders of the organization are asking for food donors from farms, restaurants, or businesses in order to make this happen.
"My hope is more businesses more farmers … learn what veggie rescue is … so that we can be a solution to their challenges … with having food they don’t want to haul to the landfill," said executive director Judy Taggart of Veggie Rescue.
The amount of food rescued by Veggie Rescue has grown from over 500,000 pounds in 2021 to nearly 700,000 pounds in 2023.
And for those hungry, ever pound counts.
“It’s wonderful ... can save your life sometimes,” said Phillipis.
Despite so much food grown locally, Taggart says about 25 percent goes to waste.
Veggie Rescue stepped up to help with wide spread food distribution during the pandemic.
The organization went from rescuing 132,000 pounds in 2019 to 516,000 pounds of food in 2020.
But they never returned to pre-Covid levels, explains Taggart.
This year Veggie Rescue anticipates finishing in the 600K range.
Taggart says this food would have gone to waste, but instead was used to feed the community.
Its nonprofit partners have come to depend on them.
With the growing need for food in all parts of Santa Barbara County, Veggie Rescue is challenged to rescue and deliver more food.
Food insecurity is a challenge in Santa Ynez Valley, its home base.
In April of this year, the Santa Ynez Valley Foundation brought together organizations working to address this issue in the valley.
The goal of the group is to inform the foundation and fellow organizations of local challenges with food and feeding.
For more information on how you can support Veggie Rescue, visit: https://www.veggierescue.org/.
