After the Harvest

In early 2023, ath began hearing feedback from funders that they were less likely to be interested in a large and concentrated approach of donating produce to the local food bank; they wanted ath to have a direct approach to helping to solve food insecurity in greater Kansas city. Additionally, the environmental impact and the carbon footprint in transporting produce across the country was mentioned during several of its funder's site visits. As a result, ath developed and began implementation of the urban produce push (upp) program emphasis. This new program emcompasses both parts of ath's programs, the truckloads program and the gleaning program. Ath impacts every part of the food system in greater Kansas city. It increased its resourcing of locally and regionally grown produce and became less reliant on food grown in other areas of the county. This result was an increase in the variety of food and to distribute a much fresher and more valuable product. Ath continued to donate to harvesters, the local food bank 1,460,381 pounds of fresh produce and delivered via semi truckloads in 2023 from the east coast.

Through the urban push program, the gleaning program determined ten of the most food insecure zip code areas in greater Kansas city suffering from from food insecurity. With this knowledge, ath adapted to emphasizing serving the partners making sure they were able to distribute fresh produce to their clients. Additionally, upp has evolved into expanding our food resources by adding new partnerships with urban farms to our already extensive list of growers, gardeners and farmers. Additionally, we have added agreements with local produce distribution companies to rescue their post market fresh food. This enabled ath staff and volunteers to rescue 1,055,545 pounds of fresh produce in 2023 all of which was delivered to agencies and food pantries across the Kansas city region.