By Grace Ulch of WKOW
MADISON (WKOW) — Wednesdays in summer mean local vendors pop up their tents for the Dane County Wednesday Farmers’ Market. But they often have fresh, locally-sourced produce that doesn’t sell.
Rather than letting it go to waste, vendors can get that food to a local family. As the Wednesday market wraps up around 1 p.m., vendors look for the Second Harvest Foodbank van, where they can grab bins to place their leftover produce.
The produce is then weighed, and Second Harvest writes a check to each vendor. Vendors like Danielle Clark with Clark Family Mushrooms.
Clark says she started participating in the Market Harvest program when it was in its pilot phase last summer. She says when she sits down at the dinner table with her family each night, it makes her happy to know that somewhere in southern Wisconsin there’s another family with fresh mushrooms on their table who otherwise wouldn’t have them.
“Without Second Harvest, we wouldn’t be able to find those people to get the mushrooms to them,” Clark said. “We would just be wasting them. So, the fact that they get cooked that night, it makes our heart so happy. It really does.”
Ben Auerbach, Food Sourcing Coordinator for Second Harvest Foodbank, says donations are the key to making this program possible. They ensure Second Harvest can afford to pay these vendors for their produce.
While the program is centered in Dane County now, Auerbach says one day they’d love to see it spread through southern Wisconsin.
“There’s a lot of markets in more remote areas outside of Dane County that we simply can’t get to. And if we can get donations to help have someone staff that, or even have a volunteer staff that and do buying for us, that’d be amazing,” Auerbach said.
Thanks to the Werndli Charitable Fund, donations made to Second Harvest will be matched up to $15,000. Second Harvest says there’s still about $9,000 left to be raised until they hit that match limit.
