Your garden fresh food donations to a local food pantry are more critical than ever. Hungry families and those living with or recovering from illness need your fresh produce.
To keep yourself, the food pantry staff and the hungry families safe, please follow these guidelines:
1. If you are under the weather, coughing or sneezing, or have a fever, don’t harvest food for your family or donation until you are better. Maybe ask a friend to do it for you (remember…stay 6 feet away from them)
2. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap. AND use your gardening gloves from harvest to donation. Don’t have gardening gloves? Consider your winter gloves or maybe dish washing (wash with soap like your hands first) gloves instead.
3. If you are going to use the food for your own family, rinse it thoroughly. If you cook the food, the cooking kills any virus that may be present. View the CDC guidelines for more information on food and COVID-19.
4. When you take the food to the food pantry, call them ahead of time and tell them exactly when you expect to arrive. Agree to a specific location at the food pantry where you will leave the food so that you can drop it off and then immediately step away more than six feet before the staff retrieves the food. Both parties should be wearing gloves.
5. When you are done, wash your hands again.
This is a difficult time for America. AmpleHarvest.org and gardeners like you can make it a bit less difficult for everyone.