Back to school is back again and we can’t believe it’s September already. In the month of August our donors and volunteers helped us create an incredible 554 delicious, ready-to-eat meals as well as donate over $3585 in produce and dry goods. Thank you for all your time and support.
As fall approaches, it’s not too late for another harvest. Spinach, arugula, and kale do well in the fall and garlic can go in now for a bountiful summer crop.
| School Nutrition AgriCulture |
| Our friends at SNAC transform Sussex County schoolyards into vibrant outdoor classrooms and thriving ecosystems where students of all backgrounds and ethnicities have equitable access to structured hands-on STEM learning and health education in order to help change children’s relationship to their food and make an impact on their health and well-being. SNAC maintains garden programs at Southern Delaware School of the Arts and recently added two new k-5 school garden programs at North Georgetown Elementary and Longneck Elementary. These beautiful gardens provide exposure to fruits and vegetables to help students learn skills to seek out healthier food options in the future as well as helping children connect with their peers and themselves in a safe, outdoor environment. A wonderful organization that deserves your support! SNAC Homeroom Harvest Fundraiser Event September 24, 2022 6-9pm at Twain and Abel Family Farm The SNAC Foundation is hosting their first annual Homeroom Harvest – a farm-to-table dinner featuring local food and drinks. Local chefs will create one-of-a-kind dishes with produce from different vendors and producers, all within a 200-mile travel radius. Each ticket includes full course tapas style dinner, two drink tickets, and music. Join us for a fabulous evening! |
1.3 billion tons of food are wasted every year. This amounts to $1 trillion dollars of wasted or lost food. There is food loss at every step of the factory farm model. Farmers facing rising temps without cooling infrastructure lose a percentage of their crop. The retail level rejects another percentage of edible food that does not meet size or visual standards. Household waste is another concern as consumers are throwing away an estimated 30% of their produce purchases.
If wasted food was a country, it would be the third largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world, after the United States and China.
Scientists have agreed that reducing our food waste should be our #1 priority in solving climate emergency. So here’s what we can do to cut out the middle-man and reduce the waste in our homes in every way we can.
- Basics of Home Composting – the EPA has awesome resources on how to start a fabulous worm farm just like Cass! Making compost keeps these materials out of landfills where they take up space and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
- Learn to Preserve – Pickling, drying, canning, & fermenting have all been around for thousands of years. Not only will these methods shrink your carbon footprint, they will save you money as well. Most preservation techniques are simple and fun – even preserve your lemon peels!
- Store Food Correctly – You know how the fridge has all those drawers? Well, that’s because not everything is supposed to go next to each other! Two thirds of household waste is due to food spoilage. Potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, cucumbers and onions should never be refrigerated, keep them at room temperature. Keep peaches, pears, and bananas away from leafy greens and peppers to prevent premature spoilage. And don’t keep milk on the fridge door, the temperature here is unstable and can make it go bad more quickly.
25% of the world’s fresh water supply is used to grow food that is never eaten.
The home gardener has the advantage in every step of this process, from composting to gardening, from vine to table, you are reducing the carbon emissions that it takes for the food to get to you, you are reducing the water used to grow it sustainably, and you are reducing the waste in its consumption. With 9.8 billion people on the planet by 2050 – this will require a 60-70% increase in global food production.
Or we could just stop throwing away our food!
| The vast majority of New York City’s 3,500 tons per day of organic waste gets carted out of the city to landfills, where it emits methane — a greenhouse gas that is 80times more potent than carbon dioxide. Lillian Summers and her neighbors decided that community composting was the answer. Read More. |
| “Sometimes it just takes someone to start something and then other people go, ‘Wow, we can do that too.'” |
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