The Need is Great
Plant a Row for the Hungry (PAR) is a people-helping-people program for home gardeners interested in helping the hungry in their own communities. The food banks are in a crunch. Every year commercial food processors and supermarkets become more efficient. They have fewer odd lots, fewer market test remains, fewer mislabeled cans and packages to deliver to food banks.
According to the US Conference of Mayors study on hunger and homelessness, about 19 percent of the requests for emergency food went unfulfilled in 1997. Over 35 million in our country face hunger often, if not daily. There's an urgent need for the Plant a Row campaign. Only you can make it work.
Although we've set a goal of raising a million pounds of donations by the millennium, (this was achieved in the USA) PAR isn't about tonnage. It's about community, a means through which 70,000,000 gardeners can help the 35,000,000 men, women and children who often go hungry.
About Plant a Row for the Hungry
PAR is a public service campaign of the Garden Writers Association of America (GWAA). Its goals are to raise a million pounds of garden produce for the hungry by the millennium, and to establish a PAR network in every US state and Canadian province. Launched in 1995 and joined in 1999 by title sponsor Home & Garden Television (HGTV), one of the fastest growing cable networks with over 50 million viewers, PAR has been endorsed by gardening organizations such as Master Gardeners, the American Community Gardening Association, the National Garden Bureau, The American Nurserymen and Landscapers Association, and by the Scotts Company, SunGro, Safe Science, Inc. and hundreds of seeds men and nurseries.
From Our Title Sponsor HGTV
HGTV is committed to supporting GWAA in this ground-breaking public service campaign. Our vision is focused on expanding the ways we communicate with the American consumer on the common ground of home and garden. Every day we urge our viewers to Imagine What You Can Do®. On behalf of PAR, we now ask our viewers to imagine how they can help as they Plant a Row for the Hungry. – Ken Lowe, CEO, HGTV
What You Can Do To Help
Step 1 – Joining the PAR Campaign
PAR is rooted in the tradition of sharing bountiful garden harvests with others. The plan is simple. GWAA and HGTV are asking you to plant an additional row in your garden and deliver the harvest to a food collection agency near you. You can participate as an individual, team up with friends or social groups, or possibly even start your own PAR campaign in your community.
Step 2 – Planting a Row
No matter how little space you have to plant an additional a row of vegetables for giving, you can make a great contribution! We welcome whatever you can give. If you regularly plant too much, the excess will mean a great deal to your community soup kitchen or food pantry. Even if your garden consists only of ornamentals, or a planter on a condo balcony, add a few herbs. Herbs are welcome because they add nutrients as well as flavour to food.
What the produce food pantries and soup kitchens need most is firm clean fruits and durable vegetables. If you have space, plant a row of any of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, peas, green beans, tomatoes, sweet peppers, eggplants, summer squash, zucchini, winter squash, beets, potatoes, onions, garlic or peaches, apples, pears, plums etc.
Step 3 – Delivering the Harvest
You can get the addresses of the nearest food bank or soup kitchen that needs fresh produce from any church organizations that helps the needy or from the Social Services department in your hometown.
