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Fuel Costs Inspires Volunteer Way To Grow Its Own Produce
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Published: May 21, 2008
NEW PORT RICHEY - High fuel costs for shipments is motivating a local food bank to grow its own food.
Volunteer Way will experiment with a soil-less hydroponic gardening project behind its warehouse on Congress Street, according to Lester Cypher, chief executive officer of the nonprofit food bank.
Clearing of the small parcel of about 100 feet has begun for the pilot project, Cypher reports. Plans call for a greenhouse about 24 feet by 50 feet to be built the week after the Memorial Day holiday.
"This is fantastic, hydroponics," Cypher commented. "Twelve months a year you're picking vegetables."
"This will supply fresh organic vegetables for our 7,000 families that come to our food bank for food assistance," Cypher wrote in a newsletter. The demand is great, he says. One recent shipment with 38,000 pounds of food was gone by noon the same day. Volunteer Way also supplies many food pantries in the area to aid needy families.
The food bank hopes to learn from the Pasco Sheriff's Office hydroponics project. Inmates at the county's main jail, in the Land O' Lakes area, help produce their own food.
In 2007, the jail hydroponics project yielded 77,242 heads of lettuce, saving the law enforcement agency $230,954, according to figures at the February meeting of the Pasco Public Safety Coordinating Council. In addition, a farm at the jail yielded another 35,454 pounds of vegetables last year.
Once the kinks are worked out, Volunteer Way hopes to expand hydroponics to a full-scale site as part of a garden.
Volunteer Way continues to search for suitable sites to expand its hydroponics initiative and set up a garden. Cypher said the food bank needs about 2 to 3 acres. He's consulting with county and state officials, along with real estate agents.
The food bank might have to buy some property, he speculates. "Or somebody will have to give it to us. That would be even better."
Carl Orth can be reached at corth@suncoastnews.com or 727-815-1068.
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