LETTUCE PRAY: Produce-collection/donation program needs new leaders

(Photos courtesy Jane Taylor)

After 10 years and five tons of donated food, this is the last year that Jane Taylor and Kristen Parsons are able to lead the Lettuce Pray program. They’re looking for volunteer(s) to take it over so it doesn’t die on the vine, so to speak, at the end of this season. Here’s what’s involved, as explained by Jane:

Lettuce Pray is a summer food-bank collection program set up informally through many of the churches of West Seattle.

Five churches — Alki UCC, St. John the Baptist Episcopal, West Seattle Unitarian Universalist, Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, and St. Bernadette’s Parish — are participating this year; in some years that has been as many as nine, depending on what other priorities the churches have. The churches mobilize their home gardeners to bring spare home-grown produce to church every Sunday morning during the harvest season (this year July 3 – October 2) and put it in specially marked Lettuce Pray boxes or baskets. We make the rounds, collect the produce, and put it in cold storage at the West Seattle and White Center Food Banks.

We have been doing this for ten years and have collected over 10,000 pounds of fresh produce. It can be done by one person, but we find it’s more fun when two people do it. It’s the easiest possible volunteer gig and allows so many people to make numerous small contributions that make a big, big impact.

Anyone who is interested is welcome to reach out to Jane Taylor – janeatay@msn.com. Our final collection will be October 2, and it would be great to bring a new volunteer on before we finish up so they can see what we do.

What you see in the top photo is what the average week’s haul takes – about 120 pounds of food, and it all fit into Jane’s Honda Insight hatchback. That’s Jane and Kristen in the second photo, by the way, with part of this week’s Lettuce Pray haul – “fresh corn and juicy plums.”

2 Replies to "LETTUCE PRAY: Produce-collection/donation program needs new leaders"

  • Maggie August 31, 2016 (8:16 pm)

    What a wonderful program! If I lived in West Seattle I would volunteer to take over in a heartbeat! 

  • Joni C September 1, 2016 (12:47 am)

    Such awesome work!  I’m interested in learning more and will reach out to Jane.

Sorry, comment time is over.