FAIRBANKS — Vegetable donations from a prison farm in Wasilla are helping the Fairbanks Community Food Bank handle a 25 percent increase in food requests this summer.
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports the organizations’ CEO, Anne Weaver, says shipments from the Point Mackenzie Correctional Farm have helped provide tens of thousands of pounds of food in recent months. The food bank has been raising money to transport the food more than 300 miles to Fairbanks.
The farm began donating earlier this year after the prison discovered it had leftovers from last summer’s garden season.
Weaver says Fairbanks and North Pole residents have also pitched in by bringing in vegetables from their home gardens.
The food bank is hoping for more produce as Interior Alaska’s harvest season goes into full force.
