Waco gardeners' surplus fills Caritas food bank
By Cindy V. Culp Tribune-Herald staff writer
How to donate
Where: Caritas, 300 South 15th St.
What: All types of fresh produce
When: 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. No appointment is necessary.
More information: Call 753-4593
If your garden produces a bumper crop of fruit or vegetables this season, you can donate what you can’t use to a food bank.
Produce is always in high demand at Caritas, a Waco organization that runs the area’s largest emergency food assistance program.
The agency receives a grant that helps it buy some fresh foods, executive director Buddy Edwards said.
James Leeper at Caritas in Waco pushes a cart full of produce to be prepared for clients.
Duane A. Laverty/Waco Tribune-Herald
It also occasionally receives donations of fruits and vegetables from grocery stores. But the agency still needs help from local gardeners, he said.
“We go through so much of it so quickly,” Edwards said of produce.
Caritas once had a community garden where volunteers grew produce specifically for the food bank, Edwards said. But that approach proved challenging and the agency abandoned it years ago.
Since then, Caritas tried to alert people about the need for produce through various gardening groups, Edwards said.
But some gardeners aren’t aware Caritas could put their extra fruits and vegetables to good use, he said.
That’s especially true now because the soured economy has caused the number of people coming to Caritas to increase, Edwards said.
In April, about 2,300 families sought help, he said.
“The client families really need to have as wide a range of produce as possible,” Edwards said. “We feel like it’s extremely important.”
Area resident Ila Jean Carothers has been donating produce from her garden for about a decade. She got the idea from an article in a gardening magazine, which urged readers to plant an extra row in their gardens for donation purposes.
After they retired, Carothers and her husband took that suggestion a step further and created a garden exclusively for donations. As a result, the Carothers are donating a lot of produce.
Produce, such as these boxes of corn and jalapenos, is in high demand at Caritas, Waco’s largest food bank.
Duane A. Laverty/Waco Tribune-Herald
Last week, for example, Carothers said she took more than 600 onions to the relief agency. Once her tomatoes are ripe, she’ll take them, too, and “whatever else I have growing,” she said.
She said she also has provided peppers and black-eyed peas.
Often, when Carothers take the produce to Caritas, clients eagerly ask her if they can have some of the items as she unloads them from her car, she said.
Knowing the food is helping those in need is satisfying, she said.
“I encourage anybody to do it that will,” Carothers said.
cculp@wacotrib.com
757-5744
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