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Hearth & Harvest · Community Food Network Summer 2026

The Harvest

Letter

14 Issue

Fresh food, full tables, no neighbor left behind. Quarterly · For our donors & volunteers

p.1

A letter from our director & the season ahead

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Amara's story — how a market box changed a kitchen

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Volunteer spotlight, ways to give & thank-you

From the Kitchen Table

What a full pantry really means

Friends, this spring our volunteers packed their one-millionth meal box since we opened the warehouse doors in 2014. I keep thinking about everything that number does not say.

It does not say that Tuesday in March when the power went out across the Eastside and forty families came to our door before noon, and our volunteers ran the cold room on a generator so no produce was lost. It does not say the way Mr. Okeke hums while he sorts the squash, or how the after-school kids have started naming the delivery van. Numbers are how we measure the work. They are not the work.

The work is dignity. It is a neighbor choosing their own vegetables at our Fresh Market instead of receiving a pre-packed bag. It is a parent who no longer has to decide between the electric bill and dinner. Every box your gifts make possible carries something heavier than food: the message that this community sees you, and that you belong at the table.

This season we are growing — a second refrigerated van, a new partnership with eleven local farms, and weekend hours so working families can reach us. None of it happens without you. Thank you for keeping our tables full.

Rosa Delgado-Amin

Executive Director · Hearth & Harvest

Fresh Market Volunteers restock the choose-your-own produce wall before Saturday's market opens.

This Quarter at a Glance

38,400 Meals shared with neighbors across the Eastside

1,120 Households served through the weekly Fresh Market

11 Local farms now donating surplus harvest

By the Numbers

Your gifts at work

94¢

Of every dollar goes straight to food & programs

312

Active volunteers gave 9,400 hours this season

62K

Pounds of fresh produce rescued from local farms

4

Neighborhood pickup sites, with a fifth opening in fall

Story of Impact

Amara built a kitchen back from empty shelves

Member Story Amara and her daughter Zoya at the Hearth & Harvest Fresh Market, where members choose their own groceries with dignity.

When Amara first walked into the Fresh Market last winter, she had not bought fresh vegetables in three months. A sudden layoff had turned her family's careful budget into a daily set of impossible choices. "I kept the heat on for the kids," she says, "and we ate whatever was cheapest. I felt like I was failing them."

A neighbor told her about Hearth & Harvest — not a place that hands you a bag and sends you off, but a market where you walk the aisles and choose your own food. That distinction mattered to Amara more than she expected. "I got to pick the apples my daughter likes. Such a small thing. I cried in the car."

"You didn't make me feel like I was taking something. You made me feel like a customer, like a mom doing her job."

— Amara, Fresh Market member

Over the following months, Amara became a regular. The market's volunteer nutritionist helped her stretch ingredients across the week; the community board connected her with a job-training program two blocks away. By spring she had steady work again — and she came back, this time on the other side of the counter.

Today Amara volunteers every Saturday morning, unloading the farm delivery and welcoming first-time members at the door. "I know exactly how they feel walking in," she says. "Scared, a little ashamed. I get to be the person who tells them: you belong here. Take your time. Pick the good apples."

Her daughter Zoya, now seven, has appointed herself the official greeter of the delivery van. The family that once could not afford produce now helps make sure no other family on the Eastside goes without it. This is what your support builds — not a transaction, but a circle that keeps widening.

Ways to Give

$25 Fills one family's Fresh Market box with a week of produce, grains & protein.

$60 Fuels a refrigerated delivery route to a homebound senior for a month.

$150 Sponsors a Saturday market — feeding roughly 40 households in one morning.

$500 Rescues a full farm truckload of surplus harvest before it goes to waste.

On the Calendar

Jul

12

Summer Harvest Volunteer Day

9am–1pm · Eastside Warehouse · Families welcome

Aug

09

Farm-to-Table Donor Supper

6:30pm · Riverside Greenhouse · RSVP required

Sep

20

Fall Fresh Market Site Opening

10am · Northgate Community Center · Ribbon cutting

Oct

04

Empty Bowls Benefit Lunch

Noon · Civic Hall · Tickets at hearthandharvest.org

Volunteer & Donor Spotlight

The people who keep the doors open

Volunteer of the Season

Daniel Okeke

For six years, "Mr. O" has run the cold room every Friday, training new volunteers and making sure not a single crate of donated produce is wasted. When March's blackout hit, he kept the generator running for nine hours straight.

"You don't let good food spoil while a neighbor's hungry. Simple as that."

Partner Spotlight

Riverside Greens Co-op

This family-run farm collective now donates its weekly surplus — more than 18,000 pounds this year alone — and hosts our annual donor supper among the tomato rows. Their generosity anchors our farm-rescue program.

"Feeding our own community is the whole reason we farm."

With Heartfelt Thanks

To every neighbor who gave time, produce, or a gift this season — you are the reason a million meals became a million welcomes. Thank you for believing in full tables.

The Castellanos Family · Northgate Rotary · Vivian & Theo Park · Eastside Credit Union · Marisol Okafor-Reed · Greenline Logistics · Dr. Anaya Joshi · The Whitfield Fund · 248 monthly Table Partners & many friends who gave anonymously.

Keep a Table Full

Become a Table Partner today

A recurring monthly gift lets us plan ahead, rescue more harvest, and meet our neighbors the moment they need us. Any amount keeps the doors open.

hearthandharvest.org/give

Give in 2 minutes

Hearth & Harvest

820 Riverside Way · Eastside, OR 97401

hello@hearthandharvest.org · (503) 555-0142

Open Tue–Sat · Fresh Market Sat 10am–2pm

@hearthandharvest

EIN: 84-XXXXXXX · A registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
Gifts are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.