Everyone deserves access to fresh, nutritious produce. With the help of local organizations, fresh produce will be shared among neighbors in the Burlington community. Farmers and gardeners often have surplus produce each year. Some growers have a plan for extra food while others do not know what to do with it. Many food-related agencies, food shelves and the Vermont Foodbank have started welcoming donations of fresh produce. Produce for the People is a partnership that has set out to inventory the gleaning efforts taking place in Burlington, promote the idea harvest donation, and host fresh food drives. Produce for the People is a partnership that includes many local organizations. Community garden volunteer, Bart Westdijk, long with staff from Burlington Area Community Gardens and City Market, facilitate meetings and communicate regularly to schedule outreach and bring in new partners. Others involved in planning and in attendance at meetings include individuals from the Intervale Center, the Vermont Foodbank, Campus Kitchen UVM, Bike Recycle Vermont, and Cooking for Life. Conversation with the Burlington Food Council, the Farmers Markets and WCAX (in regards to the Grow an Extra Row campaign) have kept Produce for the People informed about similar efforts happening locally. Donating one's freshly grown produce to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf and the Vermont Foodbank has only recently become a welcomed concept. The traditional "non-perishable" food drives have expanded to "fresh" food drives. City Market, Friends of Burlington Gardens, and the Burlington Area Community Gardens hosted fresh food drives in the past with varying success. Produce for the People will take the lessons learned and will go forth spreading the idea to donate surplus produce and encouraging gardeners and farmers to incorporate donation into their seasonal routine. Produce for the People volunteers will track donations to monitor and evaluate collection methods by weighing incoming donations and collecting information. Produce for the People will use the monitoring and evaluation information to continuously learn and develop better strategies of collection. Many efforts have been made over the years to encourage gardeners to grow surplus produce to donate. Burlington Area Community Gardens has extra seeds leftover from gardener giveaways this year and designated these seeds for Produce for the People outreach events. The seeds are distributed for free and have information cards attached asking gardeners to donate food this summer. These outreach events are as follows: • April 10: Outreach Event at BACG Spring Potluck • May 8: Outreach Event at Grow Team ONE plant sale • May 15: Outreach Event at Kids' Day • May 22: Outreach Event at City Market • June 5: Outreach Event at Church Street • July 3: Possible Outreach Event at fireworks This year, Produce for the People will host eight fresh food drives at the Intervale Center and four fresh food drives at Burlington Area Community Garden sites. Produce collected at the Intervale Center will be picked up on the following day by volunteers from Bike Recycle Vermont. These volunteers will transport the produce on a bike trailer to a different agency each week. These beneficiary organizations will likely include VNA Family Room, Sara Holbrook Community Center, Spectrum Youth Center, COTS, Food not Bombs of Burlington, Cooking for Life, and Campus Kitchen at UVM. Food collection as food ditribution will incorporate monitoring and evaluation for optimal service to the community. Collection intake sheets will track the weight of donation, type of produce donated, and the source. Produce for the People will communicate with beneficiary organizations to track how the produce was used and determine how useful it was. These monitoring methods will inform Produce for the People about necessary improvements. Produce for the People will consider whether additional capacity-building activities (nutrition or cooking classes, for example) might be necessary to increase the usefulness of produce for recipients.