Come and get it; Fresh produce free and plentiful for pandemic aid in KC
UPDATE: Food distribution is continuing every Friday through September.
The word’s got to get out. Like the phone call a friend made to 73-year-old Norma Carpenter Friday morning.
“‘They’re giving away free produce down at 17th and Paseo,’ she told me,” Carpenter said.
She’s careful where she goes. She has a mask. Hand sanitizer. “I don’t take no chances,” she said.
Volunteers wave bye to customers leaving with produce.
But the fruits and vegetables that she said she needs more of are hard to come by in her east Kansas City neighborhood.
“So I went on down.”
In all, volunteers handed out some 300 of the truckload of 25-pound boxes packed with potatoes, onions, apples, oranges, cantaloupe and romaine hearts.
It was the first of what will be a weekly giveaway every Friday through September from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. behind the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, 1710 Paseo Blvd.
The word’s got to get out, says organizer Shanita McAfee-Bryant, because she knows the need is great out there, and there is so much more food to give.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been buying up produce that is in danger of being wasted because of the shutdowns of restaurants and broken supply chains. That produce is being packaged and distributed through the USDA’s Farmers to Families Food Box program.
Food distributors receiving the produce throughout the nation are tasked with collaborating with non-profit organizations to get the fruits and vegetables into communities.
McAfee-Bryant, a chef, this year started the non-profit The Prospect as “a culinary urban eatery eco-system” to provide culinary workforce training in Kansas City.
Right now she wants to help get healthy food into Kansas City’s well-documented “food deserts” where grocery stores with fresh fruits and vegetables are faraway and hard to reach even by bus.
When schools closed in March, it added to the strain on communities that relied on school breakfasts and lunches.
“There are not enough organizations providing fresh fruits and vegetables to stand in the gap,” McAfee-Bryant said.
The Prospect teamed up with the Urban League and Kanbe’s Market to receive and distribute the produce that the USDA provided to Liberty Fruit Co.
Liberty Fruit and C & C Produce are two Kansas City-area food companies in the USDA program, and both are ready to work with more non-profits.
Volunteers load free boxes of produce into vehicles outside the Urban League in Kansas City May 29
Liberty is also distributing boxes of produce to the Fort Osage School District Education Foundation, and Fort Osage’s first distribution gave away 1,900 boxes in heavy rain last week outside its middle school to a line of cars that stretched for a mile, coursing through the campus and on down the ramp out onto U.S. 24.
Fort Osage is distributing food again this Thursday, June 4, beginning at 9 a.m. at the middle school, 2101 N. Twyman Road, Independence.
McAfee-Bryant and the team of volunteers at the Urban League worked under a blue sky Friday, in masks and gloves, including some volunteer children.
“People pull up, open the trunks, and in go the boxes,” she said.
Karen Cunningham was picking up a box for a friend she said is a senior citizen who has trouble getting out and she knew it would be a big help to her.
“It was very important,” Cunningham said. And picking up a box “was great,” she added. “It was easy and safe, no questions asked.”
The Farmers to Families Food Box program does not set any requirements on eligibility for the free produce.
And McAfee-Bryant says she intentionally does not question what brings anyone to the food site.
“I’m not here to tell people what your need is,” she said. “I know everybody across their economic status have been affected by this. If your coming and getting a box reduces your grocery bill and allows you to take that money and put it on your light bill, put it on your phone bill, or pay some rent — I’m all for it.”
“As long as they’re able to give me fresh fruits and vegetables, I’m going to do everything I can to get those out to the community,” she said.
They’ll be back this Friday, ready to go.
“So,” she adds, “come and get the food.”
By Joe Robertson, LINC writer
Video edited by Bryan Shepard