Man Helps Farmers to Deliver 3 Million Pounds of Unsold Produce to Food Banks

Courtesy of George Ahearn

George Ahearn, who grew up in the farming town of Othello, Washington, co-founded EastWest Food Rescue after learning that COVID-19 was costing local farmers so much business that they were willing to destroy their crops.

His nonprofit has since moved 3 million pounds of produce from farms in eastern Washington to the western part of the state for distribution to hundreds of food banks and meal programs.

“I know these people that I grew up with on one hand, and on the other hand I know there is a need here; I’m just going to connect the two dots,” Ahearn told CNN.

Illustration - Standret/Shutterstock

Ahearn, 45, who lives in Bothell, Washington, and also runs a nursing business, started by calling local food banks, who said they would be glad to take some of the produce that would otherwise go to waste. But when he called the farmers, they wanted to give him potatoes and onions by the semi-truck full. That was way more than Ahearn’s car could handle.

He also had another problem: Food banks needed the potatoes and onions to be cleaned and bagged before donation.

“What I didn’t realize was the logistical nightmare because I thought I could just show up with potatoes harvested straight from the ground and give them right to the food bank... I couldn’t believe it,” he said.

Courtesy of George Ahearn

So, Ahearn put out a call for help on Facebook. That’s how he connected with his two co-founders, Nancy Balin and Zsofia Pasztor. While Balin helped organize the convoy to drive across Washington to pick up the produce, Pasztor assembled volunteers to clean and bag the food, which was then distributed through connections at her other nonprofit, Farmer Frog.

A week after they started, the convoy grew, and they were able to haul more than 60 tons of produce across the state and hand it off to food banks. After two convoys and some 70 tons of donated food, Ahearn thought they had accomplished their mission. But his co-founders pointed out that the food was going fast, and their job was just getting started.

Illustration - Ale_Koziura/Shutterstock

“That’s 140,000 pounds, surely we have flooded the market, and we should be proud of ourselves, and that’s it... Three days later and there was not a potato or onion here. I realized that we need to do this again, and we got to do this for months.”

EastWest Food Rescue depends on food donations, but they also raise money to pay the farmers. They can’t match the market rates for the food, but Ahearn says they try to negotiate, “we are saying ‘what is your cost to pick it and pack it?’ If we can meet that cost, great. If we can’t, we'll let them know.”

Illustration - Vitpho/Shutterstock

As word spread, so did help from the community. A bus company offered up a bus they used to carry onions, a local Honda dealership offered the use of a new car, while two local counties offered dump trucks, which carried tons of produce.

Since May, EastWest Food Rescue has grown the size of its operations and convoys. On July 30th, they reached 3 million pounds of donated food.

Ahearn has a message for anyone who wants to make their community a better place: “I have seen minutes of effort move thousands, and thousands of pounds (of food). Just figure out what you are passionate about and what you could get involved in.”

The CNN Wire contributed to this report.