Healthy meal kit program expands in Central Oregon | Local&State
The Giving Plate food pantry in Bend usually offers guests individual items to take home each week.
But on a Thursday last month, the food pantry offered 12 families ready-to-make meal kits full of produce from local farms and a recipe card to create a hearty salad full of fruits and vegetables. The meal kits at the Bend pantry are part of a growing program that has expanded to Sisters and Prineville.
The Fresh Harvest Kit program, run by the High Desert Food & Farm Alliance, will feature different ingredients and recipes every Thursday through October. The meals are similar to the national meal kit service Blue Apron.
“It really takes the guesswork out for the families who get it,” said Ranae Staley, executive director at The Giving Plate. “They love it.”
The program started as a pilot four years ago at a church in Sisters and has since grown to food pantries in Bend, Sisters and Prineville. Over the first three years, the program provided 2,456 kits, which equaled 9,824 meals. Those meals totaled 5,569 pounds of food.
This year, the kits are available at the Giving Plate in Bend, Kiwanis Food Bank and Wellouse Church food pantry in Sisters and First Baptist Church in Prineville. The Giving Plate hands out 12 kits weekly and hopes to double that throughout the summer. The Sisters locations hand out 15 kits weekly, and 12 go out weekly in Prineville.
The kits are first come, first served , and no sign-up is required.
The High Desert Food & Farm Alliance coordinates with local farms and gardeners to provide the produce. Each pantry adds other foods to complete the kits.
“We’ve been able to meet the needs of the communities and work with the resources and passion that’s there,” said Rachel Levy, community food access coordinator at the High Desert Food & Farm Alliance.
The Prineville location is new to the program this year, and is an example of how the food and farm alliance hope to grow the program in the future, Levy said.
“I really hope in the coming years that what is starting to get established in Prineville we can establish in La Pine and in Madras and in other places and utilizing the community power that is already there,” Levy said.
Don Sawchuk, who oversees the food pantry at Prineville First Baptist Church with his wife, Roxanne, said he didn’t hesitate when he was approached about adding the meal kits to the pantry. The kits will be offered each Monday at the church through the summer.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Sawchuk said. “This is what we want to do. We support anybody who wants to come out and be involved.”
In Sisters, people lined up in their cars Thursday to receive the meal kits. Volunteers handed people bags full of ingredients and a recipe card to make kale chips and mac and cheese.
Lois Kaping, who runs the pantry, said the kits challenge people to try new foods and prepare those foods in a new way.
“It’s a great way to introduce people to vegetables and recipes,” Kaping said. “People are learning new skills. There’s a lot of dignity and worth that comes along with that.”
