From the Wholesaler to the Hungry
Susan Evans, Co-Director (E-Mail: shevans@hsc.usc.edu)
Peter Clarke, Co-Director
Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research
Unversity of Southern California School of Medicine
1540 Alcazar St., CHP 207
Los Angeles, Calif. 90033
(213) 342-2613

As Susan Evans and Peter Clarke take pains to point out, From the Wholesaler to the Hungry is not a non-profit organization, or any other kind of organization. It is simply a team of two academicians in the field of preventive medicine who encountered a grassroots program that they considered outstanding -- the late Mickey Weiss's Charitable Distribution Facility in Los Angeles -- and made it their mission to replicate that program as widely as possible in the United States.

Weiss, a retired produce wholesaler, was concerned about the large amounts of edible but not sellable food wasted in the distribution process; seeing pallets of strawberries being dumped into trash bins prompted him in 1987 to begin a program aimed at recovering fresh fruits and vegetables that would otherwise be dumped into landfills anddistributing it free through a network of emergency providers to help feed poor and hungry people.

The real, underlying significance of this idea, Evans and Clarke say, is not merely that it adds to the quantity of food available to poor people; much more important, fresh fruits and vegetables are critical elements in a healthy diet; however, food providers that focus on feeding rather than on nutrition -- terms that they emphasize are not synonymous -- may not be providing their clientele a healthful diet.

Armed with grants from a group of foundations that has now grown to 10, Evans and Clarke set out to create manuals for the replication of Weiss's model, and started looking for ways to export the idea. Although no two programs are quite alike, they've developed a systematic process to help cities. On invitation (sometimes coming easily by word of mouth, but other times the result of a long process of selling), the pair will go to the host city and spend two days presenting an intense briefing to the board members and staff of a food bank or perishable food recovery program, explaining the concept and emphasizing the importance of fresh produce.

In addition to meeting with the potential host organization, they also try to build bridges to the wholesale produce community, other regional non-profits, funders and government. Shortly after returning to home base, they send the organization a field report summarizing its strengths and challenges in terms of setting up a produce program, and outlining steps that might be taken next.

A process of negotiation and technical assistance follows, including helping the organization draw up an operational plan and seek funding, and in most cases, the local organization can launch a produce program within anywhere from four to 18 months.

All these services are provided free of charge to the local organization. Programs are encouraged to come up with a meaningful local name, NOT "From the Wholesaler to the Hungry," to emphasize that the groups are autonomous; and Evans and Clarke try to move into the background as soon as possible so the groups will not be dependent on them.

They estimate that a food bank or perishable food program can develop a program at an annual cost of 3 6 1/2 cents per pound of recovered produce. Even a small-city food bank can quickly reach the point of recovering 1 million pounds of produce in a year, they said; large organizations are able to recover significantly more.

They have now replicated the basic program in 38 cities -- most recently at Louisville's Dare To Care Food Bank -- and are working on projects in 15 more. By conservative estimate, they calculate that these programs have already salvaged more than 125 million pounds of fresh produce.

From the Wholesaler to the Hungry is supported by grants from foundations. It also administers a fund provided by an anonymous foundation that the team may use to provide new produce programs startup money for use to attract matching grants. They have written ten different training manuals dealing with different aspects of produce distribution and nutrition.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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