Grow It Forward Campaign Launches In Howard County

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many people found themselves unemployed and struggling to put food on the table. Families relied on schools to nourish their kids and others secured the services of strained food banks whose sources of food donations have almost disappeared.

To help alleviate the stress being placed upon farmers, businesses, nonprofits and others, Maryland Sen. Katie Fry Hester has teamed up with the Howard County Farm Bureau, Howard County Food Bank, Howard Community Foundation and other local partners to develop the Grow it Forward Campaign. Their goal is to help meet the needs of food-insecure communities in the fall/winter months of 2020-2021 while simultaneously supporting the economic recovery of small, local farmers. The program will connect food pantries in Carroll and Howard counties with food produced by local farmers.

“The past few months have been very hard for many people. The Grow It Forward campaign brings our community together to help farmers and Marylanders struggling with food security –while giving our students a valuable experience. This idea grew out of legislation I sponsored to encourage State Institutions to buy local food. Both leverage a triple bottom line return: it’s good for our health, environment, economy – and it also makes us more resilient. It’s really is a win for everyone,” Hester said.

Grow It Forward will grow, glean, process and preserve nutritious local food for Marylanders in need while supporting local farm income and education. The anticipated outcome is an additional 80,000 pounds of local food for local food pantries, and investment in infrastructure to strengthen the economic capacity, sustainability, and resiliency of the local food supply chain.

Through this program:
● Maryland Food Bank will work with volunteers to glean local fields of participating farms for any leftover produce.
● Local farmers with high tunnels, greenhouses, and similar infrastructure will contract with food banks to grow specific crops for harvest in the fall and winter months.
● Teams of students (such as those with 4-H and Future Farmers of America) will engage in projects, raising egg-laying chickens, for instance, to support food banks.
● Local restaurants can partner with farmers to process and preserve excess food for future use.

Grow it Forward is administered by the Howard County Community Foundation, which has already pledged $25,000 in support. The program plans to pursue a partnership for subsidized energy for greenhouses supplying local food pantries. Additionally, the program will solicit ongoing funding through small donations from customers who visit farmers markets, enroll at Community Supported Agriculture systems, shop at a farm store and who donate via the Grow It Forward website.