Potatoes, etc.

We almost ran out of potatoes! ohno! But our local newspaper came to the rescue, and we found an ad from someone who still has local potatoes in his barn, waiting for someone to come and buy them. We called up some friends around town, and ran down there with an order for 200 lbs of potatoes (which was not enough, and we'll be going again next weekend, if anybody wants to place an order!).

In Layton, we met Cleve Dibble, whose family has farmed there for 100+ years. He owns a Utah Heritage Farm, which means it's on the Utah historic register. His son is an artist, who has painted the most astonishing mural on the side of the barn. This year, his potato harvest was extra-ordinary, and he's got thousands of pounds of potatoes left over, and no way to 'unload' them. If he can't get rid of them by May, he'll have to 'dump' them. I am not sure what what that means, but I think it fundamentally means they go in the garbage or the compost pile.

So that got me thinkin'. He's selling these potatoes for $8/50 lbs. Suppose he has 2,000 pounds of potatoes. That's about $320 worth of potatoes. The food banks all around Utah are desperate for food.

It seems like a no-brainer to me to put these two groups together---I'd gladly pay $320 (or raise it!) so that my local farmer, Cleve Dibble, can make money on his farm AND the food bank can get 2,000 pounds of potatoes. Cleve gets paid for his potatoes, the food bank gets food, and I get to know that I did something to help poor people get actual food instead of boxes and cans.

It occurs to me that we have a Community Involvement Center right here on campus that gets involved in this sort of thing. I'll call them on Tuesday, and see if I can make something happen.

There should be a website. It could connect these people to each other and to money-bags like me. And a couple of volunteers to raise funds, drive trucks, and make this work. If anyone knows of a program already in existence, by all means let me know! A web search reveals that NJ, WA and CA are starting to think about this. But nothing about Utah.

oh. And what about schools?! Have you seen what we feed our children? No? Visit this blog... from Mrs. Q, who is fed up with school lunch, and eating it every day this year, as an eco-stunt to call attention to the problem.

Is it really possible no one is doing this already?