Fresh produce distributed to those in need is the heart of Grow & Give. Here you’ll find where and when your homegrown produce can be donated throughout Colorado along with other useful resources.
Use this guide to help you choose which fruits and vegetables make good donations
Use this guide to help you donate your produce or check out the steps below
Ensuring Garden Produce is Safe for Donation
Following these steps will help reduce the risk of contamination of fresh produce
Follow the steps below for safe food donation:
- Find a local emergency food provider or others in need in your area.
- Use this interactive map to find donation sites near you
- Food banks and pantries, shelters, and meal services may all use fresh produce.
- To find an organization in your county, visit the interactive map on this website or use the Fresh Food Connect app to connect with local site and schedule your donation
- Grow and safely harvest your produce.
- Take pictures of your bounty!
- Try to donate soon after your harvest.
- Follow these instructions for ensuring your donation is safe from contamination.
- Weigh your harvest.
- A bathroom scale works well.
- Hand-held luggage scales are affordable and easy to use.
- Record the weight – you will report the total of all your produce donated that day.
- Attach a Grow and Give label to your donation.
- Labels are optional unless required by donation site.
- Label template provided on this website.
- Donation Labels for Printing
- Deliver your produce.
- Remind the person receiving the produce that it should be washed before consumption.
- Report your donation to Grow & Give!
- Report Your Donation HERE.
- Do this each time you donate produce.
- Multiple crops and weights can be reported at the same time if donated on the same date and to the same location.
- Your donation report will be added to the statewide total.
Have an organization to add to our list?
As we continue to reach out to across Colorado, we know that there may be hunger relief organizations whom we have not yet connected with that could use donations of fresh produce. Have one in mind? Email us at growgive@colostate.edu or fill out a short survey at this link.
Know a gardener who’d like to give?
We know there are passionate gardeners who would donate if they knew where and when produce could be donated. And we know there are other food equity and food justice groups that are doing amazing work in Colorado. Help us connect these pieces of our larger statewide food system together – share this site with your gardening friends, family, church, school, etc! Everyone is welcome to join the effort!
There’s an App for That
Donate through the Fresh Food Connect App! We partner with Fresh Food Connect to provide gardeners with another way to facilitate the connection between gardeners and local hunger relief organizations through a simple mobile app. When you register with Fresh Food Connect, you’re automatically connected to a hunger relief organization in your area. You can use the app to coordinate and track produce donations throughout the year. Download the Fresh Food Connect app HERE.
Connecting With A Local Organization
