Boise Vineyard grow organic food for food pantry

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Linking environmentalism, religion, and free food

Vineyard Boise, an evangelical church in Idaho, focuses on composting, companion planting and bible classes.

By PlentyMag.com

Tue, Mar 24 2009 at 11:33 AM EST

Read more: RELIGION & SPIRITUALITY

Here’s the first thing I like about Bill Meeker, head gardener at the Garden O’ Feedin’, which provides free, fresh, organic food for poor people all over the greater Boise, Idaho, area: When I ask him how his one-third acre of raised beds could possibly have produced 20,776 pounds of vegetables last year, he answers, “Well, God’s involved.”

Indeed. Meeker and 115 volunteers grow their crops on land that abuts Vineyard Boise, a church in aptly-named Boise suburb Garden City, Idaho. Vineyard Boise is evangelical in all the ways that freak out an increasingly secular world. Their long statement of faith (available online) is full of turns like, “We believe that the whole world is under the domination of Satan and that all people are sinners by nature and choice.”

But here’s the second thing I like about Bill Meeker: When other churches visit to ask about setting up their own gardens, he tells them the secret is “three crucial things — compost, compost, and compost.”

Parishioners now arrive at Vineyard Boise carrying table scraps. They collect lawn clippings, but “only if they didn’t use any chemicals on the lawn,” cautions Meeker. Volunteers turn, turn, turn the compost bins. Companion planting — sugar snap peas with radishes, herbs with tomatoes — is practiced. Bible school classes help with the harvests on Tuesday and Friday nights.

When those in need arrive each Wednesday and Saturday, they start at a tent with a regular food bank—stuff in cans and bags. Then they visit the free medical clinic. And then they stop at what’s informally known as a “benevolent farmers’ market for no-cost produce.” Exchanges aren’t always Sunday-school sweet. “You see a lot of people come in who aren’t very thankful. They want more or not what you have. But they’re God’s children, just like me,” Meeker says. “If you keep that in mind, it’s okay.”

Actually, it’s better than okay. This year the Garden O’ Feedin’ farmers are doubling the land under cultivation. Before long the church will have 5 acres yielding organic fruit and vegetables—and bearing witness not only to its faith, but to the possibilities for all kinds of people to get involved in the fight for a workable future. “We have several people who used to get food here, and now they come volunteer,” says Meeker.

These days, Vineyard Boise is a model of green Christianity. The pastor of the church, Tri Robinson, was an ecology major and a high school biology teacher who lived off the grid in the mountains of California. When he eventually became a pastor and took over the Boise evangelical congregation, he brought many of his old values with him. Thank heaven. “If the statistics are true and Christians do comprise one-third of the world’s population, then what would happen if more than 2 billion people became serious about upholding the value of environmental stewardship?” he asks.

We got some sense of the answer last year when many leading evangelicals signed on to a statement calling for federal action on climate change. It began to change the politics of the issue, to break down its left-right, Republican-Democrat stalemate. In fact, it’s hard to imagine ever managing to build the political momentum for change without the involvement of religious communities around the world. Overcoming vested economic interests will require a moral charge—and our churches and synagogues and mosques are the last institutions we have that can still posit an idea for human existence beyond “He who dies with the most toys wins.”

But that’s an abstraction. Churches offer something else: a physical location, with ground to plant. They can provide a place to start making real the commandment from Genesis to till the earth and the Gospel sanction to feed the hungry. Last year the Garden O’ Feedin’ alone grew 2,200 pounds of cantaloupe—how do you like them apples?

Story by Bill McKibben. Bill McKibben is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, the author of a dozen books about the environment, and the cofounder of the current 350.org campaign, a global grassroots effort to fight climate change. This article originally appeared in "Plenty" in August 2008.

that's what I'm talking about!

How to feed a million people

This is amazing! I can't get these pictures to load but if you see the web link you will see photos of this.

See this article about a guy in Naples FL who puts together packets of rice, protein and flavoring to make nutritious meals for $.10 a serving -- more than 3.5 million as of this last December -- and that's in just 9 months!

An International Food Relief Campaign
Meals Packaged to Date:
3,815,912

http://www.naples-daily-news.com/news/2008/mar/09/rotary-club-naples-distributes-its-millionth-rice-/


This program is through the group Steve Popper started, Kids Against Hunger -- http://kidsagainsthungerofswfl.org/Contact_Us.php

Want to do this in your town? contact them at: info@kidsagainsthungerofswfl.org

Churches, youth groups, community groups help do this in Naples -- why not here?

What is a packaging event?

A packaging event is a community-involved project. During the Event, participants will be trained and supervised in how to package the food. Training will take about ten minutes, the rest of the time will be spent packaging the food. There is no heavy lifting. There are jobs for everyone regardless of age or ability. Some participants will be pouring the ingredients into the bags, others will be weighing the bags, others will be sealing the bags, runners will bring the sealed bags to people who box and palletize the finished meals. People as young as three years old have participated. Church groups, civic organizations, schools and senior citizen groups have all participated in packaging the Kids Against Hunger Meals.


How are the meals packaged?

Packaging meals are simple. The ingredients of rice, soy protein, dried vegetables, vitamins/minerals and chicken flavoring are a complete, nutritious meal, with packaged meals having been sent throughout the world. There are 6 meals to a bag, and 36 bags to a box. Each box contains 216 meals. There are over 285,000 meals to a container.

How long does it take to package meals?

A typical packaging event lasts about two hours. During that time, each person normally packages around 350 meals.
An event with 285 people will package 100,000 meals in two hours!

How much does it cost?

Each meal costs $0.12. With the news of food costs rising throughout the world, the fact that our costs
remain so low is a major component to our success. Packaging Event hosts are asked to raise money to cover the cost of the number of meals packaged at their event. The standard donation is $25 per person at each event.
There are NO administrative charges. 100% of all money raised goes to pay for the cost of the meals.

So where do the meals go?

Kids Against Hunger gives the meals away free of charge. We have set up a distribution network utilizing the Harry Chapin Food Bank, and Collier Harvest. Between both organizations the meals are distributed to over 200 agencies in Southwest Florida, located in Collier, Lee, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades Counties. Some of the agencies that distribute the Kids Against Hunger Meals include, St Matthew's House, Shelter for Abused Women, Immokalee Friendship House, and Guadalupe Family Center. We are committed to distribute as many meals possible in Southwest Florida. In addition we have sent food to Jamaica and Haiti, as hurricane relief and in response to food riots.