Meet McKenna!
We're following Denver gardener McKenna as she grows from seed to donation. McKenna will be donating homegrown produce to Kaizen Food Share through the Fresh Food Connect app, and is excited to share her garden adventures with our community!
"I am eager to donate produce this way to ensure the community can access healthy, fresh, locally grown food, no matter what their income."
How I got started
My story may be familiar to many new home gardeners. I look forward to the first warm days of spring to start planting seedlings and getting the garden ready for production after a long winter. I plan everything out to maximize my smaller space and have a productive harvest, and carefully monitor my seedlings’ progress for the next few weeks. Before I know it, we are mid-summer and all of my zucchini and tomato plants are ripening at the same time.
I’ve always prided myself on using all of the food I have at home to avoid food waste, but when your garden is producing 5 zucchinis a day and a pound of tomatoes a week, there are only so many recipes you can make with the same ingredients weekly. Next I try to pawn my harvest on whoever I can, or quickly fill my freezer with the fruits of my labor.
After a while of frantically devising more elaborate strategies to use this excess, I realized that there must be a better way to share this bounty with folks who really need it. Cue Fresh Food Connect - I saw a FFC sign in a neighbor's yard and thought this was the perfect solution to find a loving home for my garden’s output. I downloaded the app, and after just a few quick questions was connected to the Kaizen Food Share, where I will donate my excess throughout the summer.
Since signing up to donate, I’ve noticed a shift in how I think about my garden’s production. Instead of dreading the month of produce overload, I planted an extra seed or two of each variety to ensure I had enough to share with my community. I planted a wider variety of items, especially items from this frequently requested list, to ensure that I was providing nourishment in a desired form for my community, and not just passing along things I was tired of eating. I am devoting more time and care to each of my seedlings, knowing the power each tiny plant holds to help make someone’s day just a little easier.
I am eager to donate produce this way to ensure the community can access healthy, fresh, locally grown food, no matter what their income.
More about McKenna
Check out the amazing list of plants McKenna's growing this year
July: Volunteering at a food distribution event
August: Adding variety with unique homegrown produce
September: How individual donations of homegrown produce come together to make a difference
McKenna is also a Fresh Food Connect "Giving GNOME"! Check out her G.N.O.M.E. chat and Join our Giving G.N.O.M.E. program here.
