Annual Shepherdstown Rotary Potato (or other Produce) Distribution Project
36 million Americans live with food insecurity. Yet the United States produces more than enough food to feed every American at risk of hunger - many times over. The USDA reports that more than 96 billion pounds of food is wasted each year in the U.S. and 20% of the nation´s crops rot in the fields!
People in the United States don´t go hungry because of a lack of available food. The problem is one of waste and distribution.
The Society of St. Andrew, a faith-based, non-denominational, nonprofit organization effectively tackles this two-pronged problem through its Gleaning Network and Potato Project programs, which salvage fresh produce that will otherwise be wasted and donates it to feed hungry Americans. The Society of St. Andrew, a grassroots organization, is one of the nation´s largest nonprofit suppliers of fresh produce to the hungry.
On April 28th, 2007, the Rotary Club of Shepherdstown sponsored it's first annual Society of St. Andrew Potato Drop in front of Knutti Hall-Shepherd University to provide much needed food for the area´s hungry families. The Society of St. Andrew donated a tractor-trailer load of 45,000 pounds of sweet potatoes, which were donated to them by a grower in North Carolina. These are perfectly good potatoes that are commercially unmarketable due to size or slight blemishes. The load was dumped onto North King Street in front of Knutti Hall at 07:00. By 09:00, 300 community volunteers swarmed over the piles of spuds, bagged them into 10-lb. mesh bags, and loaded them into vehicles from local food banks, soup kitchens, shelters, church food pantries and other agencies based in the eastern panhandle.
Since the Society of St. Andrew began its Potato Project in 1983 and its Gleaning Network in 1988, more than 
526 million pounds of fresh produce has been saved and donated to feed the nation´s hungry. This food has provided 1.6 billion servings of nutritious food to hungry Americans. Some 335,000 volunteers have helped save this food, which would have been dumped in landfills or plowed under if the Society of St. Andrew had not salvaged it instead to feed the hungry. And all of it was saved and distributed at a cost of about two cents a serving!
An independent audit has established the Society of St. Andrew´s overhead for administration and fundraising at just 6.8%, which is among the lowest of all nonprofit organizations. This means that more than 93¢ of every dollar donated to the Society of St. Andrew goes directly to feeding the hungry.
For more information about the Society of St. Andrew and its hunger relief programs: call toll free 800-333-4597; e-mail: sosausa@endhunger.org; web site: www.endhunger.org. The Society of St. Andrew: Gleaning America´s Fields ~ Feeding America´s Hungry.