Upper Valley MEND (Meeting Each Need with Dignity) is a human services nonprofit located in Leavenworth, WA focused on fighting poverty by meeting the community needs of hunger, housing, and healthcare. The VISTA Summer Associate will work specifically with MEND’s Community Harvest Gleaning project. Community Harvest works to reduce food waste and increase access to fresh, local produce by organizing volunteers to harvest excess produce from farms, orchards, and growers who wish to donate and then transport that food for distribution at established emergency food providers in the area. The VISTA Summer Associate will work with the Gleaning Coordinator to support and strengthen the gleaning project and develop relationships to distribute produce more effectively to food banks and summer feeding programs. Project Background Harvest VISTA, a program of Harvest Against Hunger, connects local growers, food banks and volunteers to secure fresh produce for distribution to thousands of people throughout Washington State. The Harvest VISTA program finds new and innovative ways to decrease waste of fresh fruits and vegetables and increase the availability of nutritious produce to food bank clients.

Member Duties : The Summer Associate will serve to further access to local produce for food insecure populations by sustaining and expanding the Community Harvest gleaning program and coordinate with the summer feeding programs. The SA will assess the current state of the Community Harvest Program and create or revise goals for the 2020 harvest season to improve effectiveness and program sustainability. The SA will revise and implement a volunteer recruitment plan, develop education and outreach for the promotion of eating local produce and coordinate volunteers for harvest events and organize food collection and distribution. The SA will create strategies for highlighting program impact through storytelling using qualitative and quantitative data.

Website link here: https://my.americorps.gov/mp/listing/viewListing.do?id=60170&fromSearch=true#new_tab