Letter: Community Harvest Project delays volunteer requests through June 13

Like many of you, we have spent the last several weeks evaluating how all of the variables associated with the current Covid-19 pandemic affect our operations. We realize the far-reaching impact and disruption that this is causing throughout our communities and hope that you and your loved ones are well and remain safe. 

Thus far, we have maintained our focus on preparing our orchard for spring blooms, seeding for eventual transplanting outdoors, and preparing our fields for planting. Our staff has been working diligently with the help of a small but mighty team of volunteers and we are pleased to report that everything is right on schedule here on our farms. All of this is in an effort to stay on track and ultimately provide much needed fresh fruits and vegetables to the 60,000+ in our community seeking hunger relief from our partner agencies. That need is likely to grow and our crops will be a critical piece of community support in the coming months. 

With the current restrictions placed on large gatherings we have had to rethink how we will go about our work during the planting season. As an organization that thrives because of the thousands of volunteers that support our work each year, this is particularly challenging. However, to protect the health of everyone in our community, we are cancelling all group volunteer requests through June 13.

Despite this, we remain committed to fulfilling our role as the largest or only source of free fresh fruits and vegetables for our 16 hunger relief partners, especially as the need now grows. In these unprecedented circumstances, we have resorted to using a mechanical planter to ensure that our crops are in the ground on time so that we are still able to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to those who rely on us. As with everything, we will continue to reevaluate and update you on our next steps in the coming weeks. 

While we can still provide essential nutrition to our neighbors in need, we will deeply miss the connections fostered between volunteers both veteran and new on our farm this spring. Recognizing the deep good in friends and strangers, the light and joy of working hard and working together – that will be harder but equally important to try to replicate as we are now called to take care of each other in new ways amid social distancing.

So we encourage you to stay in touch with each other – and with us. Follow our Facebook and Instagram to stay informed. Stay tuned for other changes as we continue to adjust our plans for this season. 

With your support, we can help our neighbors in need as illness, unemployment, and instability make having enough healthy food that much harder. Any donations made during this time will ensure that we are able to continue to provide healthy hunger relief as our community recovers. Your support and understanding in the coming weeks and months is critical and we will strive to get back to normal operations as soon as the situation allows.

Thank You,

The Community Harvest Project Team