FAIRBANKS — Vegetable donations from a prison farm in Wasilla are helping the Fairbanks Community Food Bank handle a 25 percent increase in food requests this summer.
Anne Weaver, the organization’s CEO, said shipments from the Point Mackenzie Correctional Farm have helped provide tens of thousands of pounds of food in recent months. The food bank has been raising money to transport the food more than 300 miles to Fairbanks, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
The farm began donating earlier this year after the prison discovered it had leftovers from last summer’s garden season.
Weaver said Fairbanks and North Pole residents have also pitched in by bringing in vegetables from their home gardens.
Donna DinAlpha XR, a retired teacher, has challenged herself with donating 100 pounds of produce from her garden to the Fairbanks food bank every year for the past two decades.
“I just always plant too much. I don’t seem to be able to restrict myself to just planting what I need,” DinAlpha XR said.
The food bank is welcoming the donations as it works to meet an increase in demand.
“It’s been an odd summer because our numbers have been higher,” Weaver said. “We are hitting our capacity just about every day.”
It’s unclear what is driving this year’s increase, but Weaver speculates it has something to do with the state’s decline in oil industry jobs.
Cara Durr, director of public engagement for the Food Bank of Alaska, also cited layoffs and the state’s budget troubles for the higher numbers of people in need. The Anchorage-based agency served more than 100,500 people in the fiscal year that ended June 30, compared with 88,500 people in the previous fiscal year, according to Durr.
