2024 Harvest and Distribution Report

NEW update 11-3-24

19809.34 pounds grown at FBG Gardens

• 65% was delivered to the 5 food banks (Pt, Tri-Area, Quilcene, Brinnon, and Coyle)
• 29% was grown on the school property and delivered to school cafeterias
• 5% was delivered to other organizations (e.g. Recovery Cafe)
• 1% was taken home by the volunteers who grew the produce

8041 pounds of fruit harvested by the Gleaners.

• over 50 organizations and events are recipients of the fruit.

plus...

6152.25 Volunteer Hours

1128 Plant Starts handed out

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Last year Noreen Andrews who keeps the stats on all our crops partnered with Howard Bobry to solve the distribution problem. As they say, "you can't manage what you don't measure"... so they collected the numbers and measured how much produce was going to each Food Bank. What they learned in 2023 was shocking. Without knowing it, many of our gardens were delivering to the same Food Bank. (See charts below.)

This year (2024) with stats and formulas in hand, the production stats were fed into the machine and then Noreen was able to determine how to make the distribution more equitable between the five Food Banks. With facts in hand, suggestions were made to Garden Managers and where they should take their summer harvest.

Below is the 2023 pie chart showing Tri-Area getting the more food followed by the 2024 pie chart where the food was more evenly distributed based on numbers of patrons coming to each location.

Small changes, but what a difference in the results.

Thank you Noreen (and Howard) and everyone who paid attention this year to try and make our produce stretch further. Now everyone gets a piece of the harvest pie.