Plenty! Farm and Foodbank

Plenty! Farm and Food Bank is a non-profit grassroots organization located in Floyd county, VA. Founded in 2008 by Karen Day and McCabe Coolidge, Plenty! provides nourishment to the families of Floyd County through its multiple programs that supply organic food and produce without making recipients prove financial need. One of the organization's most prominent programs is a food pantry that is accessible to all families living within the community, where people can pick up free and fresh food once a week. Plenty’s main vision is to create a healthy, diverse, and welcoming community in Floyd county as people grow and share food, which in turn helps bring up the bigger conversations about sustainable food practices in Floyd county.

Plenty! developed from its humble beginnings as a volunteer portable food outlet into a bigger organization encompassing the whole county and sponsoring a variety of programs and events. Its core mission from the start was to fight against the constant battle of food insecurity that happens in Floyd county. Food insecurity is defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active, healthy life.

A Fight Against Food Insecurity

The Plenty! Farm and Food Bank fight against the broader issue of food insecurity within Floyd county by providing help to people that either don’t have the financial means to purchase foods or that don’t have the transportation means to obtain the food they need. According to Executive Director Nancy Tome, about 70% of people in the community have some sort of diet-related health condition, which is concerning in a place like Floyd that has a low percentage of food stores. At least 9.2% of county residents lack access at times to adequate food annually, and in 2020, the county had the food insecurity score of 8.9%. Within that percentage, 90% of people fell below SNAP and other nutrition programs' threshold of 200% poverty. This meant that the average meal cost was $3.49 and the additional money required to meet food needs is $786,000.

A Blossoming Beginning

Karen Day’s connection with producing fresh food started at a young age when she was raised on her maternal grandparent’s farm in Missouri. Her experience teaching school in Chicago, supervising children's programs, and attending seminary shows her passion for providing service to whatever community she is in. Day met her husband, McCabe Coolidge, and the couple moved to Floyd county in 2005. They immediately joined the Seven Springs Farm CSA (community-supported agriculture) where they would help with growing fresh produce as well as learn techniques on how to prepare them into meals and expand their food tastes.

In 2008, after Day's attempt to give extra greens that the Seven Springs Farm had to a local food pantry in town was declined, she and Coolidge came up with the idea of the Portable Produce program, where volunteers would bag and distribute weekly deliveries of fresh produce to families all around the county. They designed the initial Portable Produce program as a way to help food-insecure families who lacked transportation. Day and Coolidge also wanted the Portable Produce program to be a method of connecting and uniting county residents on a more personal and intimate level through the sharing of fresh produce.

When we feed each other, we are fed, when we nourish community, we nourish our own souls [^1]

The Seeds Grow

More volunteers started to come forward to help the Portable Produce program, which eventually led to Day and Coolidge opening up a food bank in order to bridge the gap between harvest seasons. Since then, many other programs and services started to be developed and this small organization grew bigger, becoming aptly named Plenty! The organization's programs and services include the Plenty Farm (which opened on July 20, 2014), consisting of two acres of cultivated fields, and a high tunnel and greenhouse for raising fresh organic produce for both the food bank and other food programs. Plenty! also hosts a free community lunch to bring people together to eat freshly made meals as well as commiserate and connect with each other, as well as educational programming on sustainable food topics ranging from nutrition and cooking to farming and gardening. Plenty! gained non-profit status in 2015 and was an all-volunteer organization until 2016 when Day and McCabe stepped down from their positions and hired a staff to help direct and run the organization.

A Strong and Plentiful Future

In 2023, Plenty! services and programs are still going strong, with around 10% of county residents relying on the Plenty Foodbank. On average, the organization distributes 5,250 pounds of food each week, has 186 food pantry visits and deliveries each week, has 60 volunteers per week and does 3,985 home deliveries each year. In 2022, 681 families were served at least once. New events and programs include the Tour de Dirt, an annual bike ride fundraiser that explores the lesser-known roads in Floyd county, and the Chestnut Festival, a new annual event that started in 2022 for the community to come together and celebrate this regionally important food, eating chestnut soups and learning about the how to plant and harvest chestnuts through workshops. Plenty! shows how valuable community-based participatory programs are in improving the issue of food insecurity through accessible and holistic efforts.

^[1] Armistead, Anne. Nourishing Community: Karen Day at TEDxFloyd, Youtube. June 3rd, 2013. Accessed April 27th, 2023. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fmxo0EK82g&t=1s.

Harris, Robbie. Big Hearts and Food A-Plenty! in Floyd., WVTF. December 17th, 2014. Accessed April 27th, 2023. www.wvtf.org/post/big-hearts-and-food-plenty-floyd.

Jean-Baptiste, Kelsey . Fighting against Food Insecurity in Floyd County., WFXRtv. February 13th, 2023. Accessed April 27th, 2023. www.wfxrtv.com/news/fighting-against-food-insecurity-in-floyd-county/.

Larsen, David. Plenty Farm - Grand Opening , Floyd Virginia., Plenty Farm - Grand Opening , Floyd Virginia. July 21st, 2014. Accessed April 27th, 2023. floydvirginiausa.blogspot.com/2014/07/plenty-farm-grand-opening-floyd-virginia.html.

“Overall (All Ages) Hunger & Poverty in Floyd County, Virginia: Map the Meal Gap.” . Accessed April 27th, 2023. map.feedingamerica.org/county/2018/overall/virginia/county/floyd.

Plenty Local. Accessed April 27th, 2023. plentylocal.org/.

Plenty! Announces Inaugural Chestnut Festival., SWVA Today. November 2nd, 2022. Accessed April 30th, 2023. swvatoday.com/community/article_2de6880c-5a04-11ed-a49d-4bd664993d67.html..

Doustmohammadian, Mohammadi-Nasrabadi, Keshavarz-Mohammadi, Hajjar, Alibeyk, Hajigholam-Saryazdi; Azam, Fatemeh, Nastaran, Melika, Sepideh, Maryam. Community-based participatory interventions to improve food security: A systematic review. Frontiers in Nutrition, vol. 9. Published December 19th, 2022.

Bazerghi, McKay, Dunn; Chantelle, Fiona, Matthew. The Role of Food Banks in Addressing Food Insecurity: A Systematic Review. Journal of Community Health, vol. 41, no. 4732 - 740. Published January 4th, 2016.