February 28, 2024 @CentralTexasFoodBank
An interview and tour with Garden Manager, Hannah Beall
Growing Food Plots:
Education Garden - 150’ x 150’ Triangle (0.5 acres)
Production Field - 150’ x 150’ Square (0.5 acres)
6500 Metropolis Drive, Austin, TX.
Central Texas Food Bank’s mission is to nourish hungry people and lead the community in the fight against hunger. Hunger in America is a daily reality. Everyone needs nutritious food to thrive. And, while people are working hard to provide for themselves and their families, approximately 49 million people—that's one in six people in the U.S.—still relied on food assistance from charities like Feeding America in 2022. Here’s how the Central Texas Food Bank is striving to address these challenges.
In 2023, with a staff of about 150, Central Texas Food Bank (CTFB) delivered 65 million pounds of food serving 70,000 people per week. CTFB delivers to 21 counties as a partner with Feeding America. They actively work with local businesses and churches to prepare, package, and deliver this food. On average, CTFB manages 900 volunteers per week in various work centers, the largest being the warehouse, residential delivery, and the commercial kitchen. Food is sourced from grocers like HEB, Walmart, government grants, and individual donations.
A few of the Central Texas Food Banks best practices include their modern food handling facilities and commercial kitchen with the needed supervision to ensure food is safely and efficiently received, packaged, stored, and delivered to those most in need. In terms of farms with social missions, CTFB excels in getting the word out for volunteer events and holding educational workshops. They want the Food Bank to be not just a handout but an opportunity to give back and help others in the community learn about food in the process.
Garden Food Production and Education
Hannah Beall, Garden Manager, and her assistant Olivia manage the community gardening program on about 1 acre. Hannah offers three volunteer shifts Tuesday through Thursday. Her focus is growing the basic vegetables and fruits that people will eat. That’s a learning process for the farmer and those who come regularly to access CTFB’s food pantry. Certainly, carrots, onions, and cabbage fall into that category. Less familiar produce like mustard greens, chard, beets, collards, and kale are made more approachable through sampling and recipes offered in the onsite pantry by the Nutrition Education team. Samples with recipes and nutrition facts are provided in the pantry for those coming to shop. A growing food education garden is the centerpiece for this learning.
Food recipients most often request more fresh produce. Onsite pantry clients rave about the fresh produce provided from the garden as being better than @WholeFoods quality which is something they would normally not have access to.
While the 1 acre garden space only produces a small fraction of this demand, the garden program helps fulfill CTFB’s mission to educate the public about nutrition and food, especially where it comes from. The combined gardens (production and education) have provided on average 16,000 pounds per year of fresh food for the local community. Hannah, who is in her ninth month as garden manager, walked us through the field's 120-foot beds with drip irrigation to conserve water. She shared that one of CTFB’s regular volunteers recently got hired by a local organic vegetable farm thanks to the experience she gained from working in the CTFB Garden.
Children's Garden dedicated to food education
Hannah’s previous work experience as a farmer, preserver, and consultant make her well qualified for this position. She trained at Farmshare Austin, a nonprofit farm on 10 acres with vegetable fields and an orchard. Her training led her to accept an opportunity managing Hairston Creek Farm where she tended 2.5 acres of organic vegetables on a total of 10 acres. Then, COVID hit and she lost access to her farmland. She started her own “Han-Can” business making fruit preserves, pickles, and fermented food products out of locally sourced produce. She also worked for Urban American Farmer as a co-teacher for their farm school for chefs. Class would be held at an urban farm to give chefs a deeper understanding of seasonality and where their food comes from. She also worked on the Farm Viability team for the Sustainable Food Center helping farmers succeed.
Beginning this Spring, kids who are a part of SNAP, the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, will take field trips to the education garden each week. SNAP funding helps pay for a portion of the gardening and nutrition education program budgets. Some of the three-feet tall grow boxes have been adapted for wheelchair access. That makes it possible for veterans or disabled to garden even with physical limitations.
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