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Big Hearts and Food A-Plenty! In Floyd

It’s estimated that one in seven people in this country go hungry, but in Floyd County Virginia, there’s “Plenty” to go around.  

In the U.S., many go hungry, even as food is wasted every day.   That’s what led a group of people in Floyd to create Plenty! – an organization that tries to smooth out the curve between too much and not enough.  They first got the idea 5 years ago, when McCabe Coolidge’s partner, Karen Day, had a bunch of left over beet greens.

McCabe Coolidge and Karen Day

  “And she said, Aha – I'll take them around to Community Action or Social Services and they didn’t know what to do with them.”

As every backyard gardener knows, when you have a surplus, you bring some to your neighbor.  And that pretty much explains how Plenty! worked for a while

“More volunteers came, more gardeners, more farmers and then we decided, well aren’t people hungry in the winter?”

So the growing group of friends opened a food bank, stocking dry goods to bridge the gap between harvests.

Larry Prescott mans the food bank on Monday afternoons. All he asks is your name and if you live in Floyd county. 

“They’re not coming in unless they need something and if they need something I want to be here to give back.”

Last year, Plenty! fed 120 families. This year, that doubled to 240.  Plenty kept growing out of its rented space so last year, Coolidge and Day took out a personal loan to buy farmland in Floyd and built a permanent home for Plenty.  When it’s paid off, they’ll donate it to the non-profit organization.

“I haven’t met many people like this who would put them selves out there that would give so much to ask nothing in return.”

Jonathan Vandergrift worked as a counter-terrorism Intelligence Analyst/Officer for the FBI until 2011 in Northern Virginia.  He then moved to Floyd with his wife and young son.

“Whenever the blackberry went off he would get anxious and we realized that, this is enough. We need something different.”

Now Vandergrift runs the farming operation at Plenty!, growing produce to give away. 

Plenty!'s Christmas Parade

“I had dreams about doing this sort of stuff, being able to be a farmer and romanticize and ya know, I got the best job in Floyd County because I get to be the farmer and do all this stuff and I know the food’s going to a good cause and I don’t have to worry about selling it, which is a huge part of being a farmer out here is trying to find your market, trying to find that farmer that will buy it. It’s not just growing that tomato it’s being able to sell that tomato too.”

But there’s still the stress of finding a way to make this volunteer effort self-sustaining. The new property comes with new costs and still has some unused acreage that could be put to work growing vegetables.

Again, McCabe Coolidige.

“And then this thing came right out on our plates and brought tears to my eyes it was like Whoa.”

Plenty was chosen to win a new, $40,000 tractor after the parents of one its interns secretly put together a proposal for a competition by Yanmar Tractors in Georgia. Kelli and John Higgs own T & E Engines, a small company in Floyd, they knew Plenty! would put it to good use.

“She submitted this grant and we won it! Only two tractors nation wide and this little town of 500 got it.”

The new tractor will be delivered Tuesday and Plenty! invites the community to join them to celebrate with a free chili and cornbread lunch tomorrow, December 16th, at its new location on Elephant Curve Road in Floyd.

For more information on Plenty! visit their website here

Robbie Harris is based in Blacksburg, covering the New River Valley and southwestern Virginia.
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