High Desert Food & Farm Alliance (HDFFA) supports a thriving food and farm network in Central Oregon and has several programs and projects, two of which we wanted to highlight in our community spotlight this month.
HDFFA is expanding farm fresh food through a mobile food pantry—a refrigerated truck called Fresh to You—starting this summer. HDFFA and NeighborImpact linked their financial resources to buy a refrigerated food truck that will offer food pantry items, ready-to-make meal kits and fresh fruits and vegetables from Central Oregon farms. NeighborImpact acts as a food bank for Central Oregon and supplies donated food to various food pantries. The initial plan is to set up the Fresh to You mobile food pantry at Mosaic Medical in Prineville a few times a month.
HDFFA used $22,500 from a US Department of Agriculture grant for community food projects that was added to the financial support of $95,000 from NeighborImpact to buy the truck. Visit HDFFA and NeighborImpact to learn more about both non-profits and how you can help improve farm fresh food access in Central Oregon.
HDFFA also collects fresh produce from local farmers, gardeners and community members to improve accessibility to fresh food through a fresh food drive called Grow & Give. Since 2015, HDFFA has donated over 45,000 pounds to NeighborImpact. Opportunities to participate in Grow & Give include fresh produce donations collected during the summer at Farmer’s Markets in NWX (Saturdays, 10am-2pm starting June 8) and Downtown Bend (Wednesdays, 2pm-6pm). Check out the Grow & Give page to learn more.
We believe HDFFA is doing a wonderful job of supporting a healthy and thriving food & farm alliance network in Central Oregon. And we hope you’ll agree, too, after learning more about them.
