By Kate Maugeri – From New Jersey Monthly, January 22, 2021

A new partnership between Gravity Hill Farm in Titusville and Rolling Harvest Food Rescue helps the nonprofit continue to serve families in Hunterdon and Mercer Counties.

Nearly a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, which has disrupted food systems around the world, the hunger crisis has only intensified. Cathy Snyder, founder of Rolling Harvest Food Rescue, has watched the pressures impact families throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. “There is not a single zip code spared,” she says.

Food insecurity and hunger in the United States have existed long before we felt the stress of the coronavirus. In fact, well before we shuttered our doors and sheltered in place last spring, more than 35 million people struggled with hunger in the United States, including 10 million children. In the wake of the pandemic, with job loss at an all-time high, the number of people struggling with food insecurity has grown to more than 54 million people, including 18 million children. “This is unsustainable for us as a country,” says Snyder. “We could do so much better.”

In most cases, the hunger isn’t caused by a shortage of food. “There is a surplus of healthy food right here, it’s just a matter of creating the logistics to get it from where it’s grown to the people who need it and keep it out of landfills,” says Snyder.

Since 2010, Rolling Harvest’s team of more than 200 dedicated volunteers have visited local farms and harvested crops that would otherwise be composted or discarded after the initial commercial harvest. They then distribute this fresh, local produce to food-insecure communities in five counties throughout western New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, including food pantries, domestic violence shelters, low-income senior centers, children and family homeless shelters, as well as to at-risk low-income adults with health challenges. “What we have found in doing this for 10 years is that the underlying food system is really stacked against people with limited income,” says Snyder.

Rolling Harvest, headquartered across the Delaware River in New Hope, Pennsylvania, currently works with over 50 farm partners and food producers. But one Garden State farm, in particular, has been with them since the beginning. Gravity Hill Farm in Titusville regularly donates thousands of pounds of food, and has allowed the nonprofit to house their permanent coolers and delivery trucks on their farm.

In late 2020, Gravity Hill Farm and Rolling Harvest announced a new partnership. Gravity Hill Farm will transition to a full-scale farm-based education operation and their available land will be dedicated to growing food specifically for donation. Rolling Harvest will enlist volunteers to come out and help with planting, weeding, and harvesting up to five acres of donation crop that will feed families and recipient sites in need.

The new merger with Gravity Hill Farm will also allow food pantries to come directly to the farm and pick out the exact kind and amount of produce they need, enabling more food banks and pantries to offer fresh, seasonal produce suitable to their guests.

“One of the things we try to do is to show people the respect and the compassion and the dignity that we all need by giving them the choice,” says Snyder. “Not everyone likes okra, not everyone likes Swiss chard. Why not let someone choose for themselves and for their family?” Allowing people to shop for their own food not only provides freedom of choice, but it also helps to significantly reduce food waste.

Snyder and her team also developed an educational nutrition program. At no additional charge to their partner organizations, the program offers on-site tastings and cooking demonstrations that show patrons how to store and prepare seasonal produce. Each demonstration ends with recipe handouts available in both English and Spanish, and all recipes can be found on Rolling Harvest’s website.

For Snyder, a Philadelphia native, advocacy and food justice are inherent to her character. “I was always very active in community service,” she says. “It’s in my DNA.”

Snyder is aware of the discomfort that can be involved with asking for help, but hopes that by turning food banks into farmers’ markets, we can begin to reframe the narrative around food insecurity. “I want people to know that there should be no shame in asking for help. If you’re struggling, if you are having trouble paying your bills and putting healthy food on your table, so are so many of your neighbors,” she says.

For more information about volunteer opportunities or farmers’ markets, visit Rolling Harvest Food Rescue’s website, which also features recipes for the fresh produce that’s distributed.

George Legette, left, a Second Baptist Church food pantry driver, takes a case of fresh produce from Ian Bell, a Rolling Harvest Food Rescue volunteer, during an emergency pop-up food distribution at Solebury Orchards, in Solebury Township, on Tuesday, December 15, 2020. [photo credit: Michele C. Haddon / Photojournalist]

Story by Marion Callahan, Bucks County Courier Times [link to story]

This past Thanksgiving, food pantry manager Kizzy Wright saw a sight she’s never witnessed.

“Our line was out the door. We’ve never experienced that demand — ever,” said Wright, who continues to see a surge in families turning to Bread of Life Community Pantry in Bristol for food.

The coronavirus has been the perfect storm for Bucks County neighbors trying to make ends meet. Facing job losses and unpaid bills, families who are feeling the economic fallout don’t have the money to pay for groceries. Spikes in homelessness have also created more demand at Bucks County food pantries.

“This pandemic has spared no ZIP code, almost no household,” said Cathy Snyder, founder and executive director of Rolling Harvest Food Rescue. She said food pantries in the region are experiencing a 40% hike in the number of families turning to them for help, and “many of them up until very recently were living very comfortable middle-class lives.

Jay Quilty, left, volunteer driver with Rolling Harvest Food Rescue, and Jamie McKnight, program and development director, load cases of whole cooked turkeys into a van during an emergency pop-up food distribution. [photo credit: Michele C. Haddon / Photojournalist]

Pantry managers, however, can’t fight hunger alone. Fortunately, Snyder said: “With a collaborative community response to hunger, they don’t have to.”

On Tuesday, pantry managers from across the region and from church ministries across the county headed to Solebury Orchards in Solebury to pick up crates of fresh vegetables, turkeys and toiletries provided during a food distribution pop-up event sponsored by Rolling Harvest Food Rescue and United Way of Bucks County.

Businesses including McCaffrey’s Market, Traugers Family Farm, Pennypack Farm and North American Produce Co. also pitched in, donating thousands of dollars in food and produce to help neighbors in need.

Wright said needs are greater than ever. Pantries had pivoted to deliver food to many elderly residents who are unable to venture out, she said. With kids home, mothers are unable to provide enough food for their household. After her trip to Solebury to load up on fresh produce and turkeys, Wright said the fresh donations will make a big difference to families in Bristol, she said.

“When you have an opportunity to get real good fresh vegetables, it’s amazing,” said Wright. “We don’t want to just give out pasta, sauce or junk. We want to give out good food.”

Mike Cerino, left, Warminster Food Bank president, Brian Dempsey, center, Lester Bahrt Food Bank co-director, and Ian Bell, a Rolling Harvest Food Rescue volunteer, carry cases of fresh produce. [photo credit: Michele C. Haddon / Photojournalist]

Loading boxes of Brussels sprouts and peppers into the bed of his pick up truck, Brian Dempsey, of Lester Barht Food Pantry in Fairless Hills, said the donations will bring a great deal of joy to those relying on donations for meals. “We take care of 350 to 450 a month from our pantry,” he said.

Looking at the flurry of activity, Snyder watched as volunteers loaded crates onto trucks and vans coming from all corners of the county. She lauded the generosity of businesses and groups that made the food pop-up possible.

Tuesday’s pop-up food event was made possible by a $5,000 COVID-19 Recovery Fund grant provided by United Way of Bucks County to Rolling Harvest, which purchased food for emergency feeding programs for pantries in Bucks County.

In total, with donations from McCaffrey’s Food Markets, area groups distributed $20,000 worth of whole cooked smoked Lancaster Farm turkeys. Rolling Harvest also provided pantries with Solebury Orchards apples and a variety of fresh seasonal produce gleaned from local Bucks County farms.

Snyder praised McCaffrey’s, a Bucks County-based supermarket, for donating its surplus of cooked turkeys and credited Solebury Orchards for offering storage space and a site for pick up and distribution of the food.

“Traugers Family Farm and Pennypack Farm went into the fields and harvested this — just for us,” she said. “It’s more important than ever that social service and nonprofit organizations join forces to accomplish solutions to a problem whose scale is well beyond the scope of one individual organization.”

Ian Bell, a Rolling Harvest Food Rescue volunteer, unloads cases of turnips and sweet potatoes from Trauger’s Farm during an emergency pop-up food distribution at Solebury Orchards, in Solebury Township, on Tuesday, December 15, 2020. [photo credit: Michele C. Haddon / Photojournalist]

Snyder said people are heading into the new year with even more uncertainty about their jobs, housing, and health. “The hardest hit seem to be those with children, and our neighbors from predominantly African-American and Latino communities,” she said.

Tim Philpot, the Bucks County United Way’s director of Financial Stability and Health, said that with support from Penn Community Bank, the United Way of Bucks County launched the Bucks County COVID-19 Recovery Fund in March to help area nonprofits meet their clients’ COVID related needs.

Initially, he said, basic needs like food, shelter, and PPE were primary targets. Since it began, the Recovery Fund has provided over $395,000 in the form of 76 grants to agencies in Bucks County, he said.

“We’re so pleased that Rolling Harvest was able to leverage our grant funding for greater impact. So many more people are food-insecure now than at this time last year,” said Philpot. “Dynamic partnerships like this will help ensure we can meet the increased need.”

Food pantries at Tuesday’s event included County Commons in Bensalem; Pennridge Community Center in Perkasie; Bread of Life Food Pantry in Bristol; Lester Bahrt Food Pantry in Fairless Hills; Warminster Food Pantry; Bux Mont Church in Warrington; Soulful Blessing in Bristol; Revivals Outreach Center and Food Pantry in Perkasie; Philadelphia PARX Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association in Bensalem; and the YWCA in Bensalem.