The Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma has the motto of “Fighting Hunger . . . Feeding Hope” and has been doing so for 29 years. The organization provides food to approximately 500 agencies across 54 counties in central and western Oklahoma. While its primary efforts revolve around distributing food in cans, boxes and packages to include frozen meat, the Food Bank has a number of other programs that attack hunger in other ways. I would like to share with you a unique program that not only provides fresh produce to folks in need - but also teaches how they can seize control of their own food needs by investing in a little time and labor of their own through gardening.
      Urban Harvest is an agriculture program of the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. The original concept when it was formed several years ago was to assist community organizations and neighborhoods to organize, build and sustain Community Gardens as places people could go to grow food for themselves or their community as well as provide a means of bringing people together in a social setting. Currently Urban Harvest works in association with approximately 30 gardens of various sizes, and purpose with several other gardens being planned. Some feature plots in which people grow for themselves, or for their church food pantries and some are more educational in focus – such as school gardens. A unique feature of the program is that each year it starts seedlings in its greenhouse which are then given to the gardens. Last season over 12,000 plants were distributed as well as seed and other materials that came available.
      Crop gleaning is another approach the program uses in fighting hunger. Basically Urban Harvest works with local farmers and farmers markets to pick up produce the growers could not sell at market. Instead of the produce being thrown away Urban Harvest attempts to send it to agencies to be distributed to people seeking food assistance.
      Bruce Edwards is the programs current director. Bruce retired from the army in 1994 at which time he used his GI Bill to study horticulture at Oklahoma State University/OKC. He developed a strong interest in the concepts of organic and sustainable agriculture and had a strong desire to help people during and after his studies and considered joining the Peace Corp before he was approached to join this program five years ago. Since then he has applied his passions through this program. A good example of this is seen in the Community Gardening component of the program and the addition of Home Gardening classes that Bruce has started this year. After receiving an increasing amount of phone calls from people worried about the economy and the high cost of food he developed a series of classes that are taught for a small fee to teach people the basics of home gardening. “We have generations of people that do not know where their food comes from, let alone how to begin to grow their own food . . .” says Bruce. In addition to this Bruce has started developing and pioneering some interesting projects such as growing plants and Tilapia in the greenhouse. The technique is called Aquaponics and circulates water continuously between the fish tank and the plant growing beds. The fish fertilize the plants and the plants help clean the water. He also maintains “herds” of worms in boxes that are fed garbage and waste from the Food Bank as a form of recycling. The worms produce high quality natural compost that is used on the gardens instead of commercial petroleum based fertilizers and sold to the public to raise money to continue the program.
      Bruce depends upon volunteers in the work of Urban Harvest. Financial support and donated gardening related tools and materials are also greatly needed and appreciated. Tours can also be scheduled with advance notice. Bruce may be contacted by clicking on “Contact Author”.

Bruce & Doug, Co-authors
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