ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, September 12, 1996           TAG: 9609130012
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-4  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER

FOOD BANK ADDS PRODUCE TO ITS PICKINGS FRESH TOMATOES ARE AMONG THE PERISHABLES NOW BEING HANDLED

Georgia Davis hoisted a double-layer case of cherry tomatoes and gingerly set it on top of another case.

"Thirty-one pounds," she told Callie Simmons, who was standing nearby inside the rain-dampened Southwestern Virginia Second Harvest FoodBank warehouse in Roanoke on Wednesday, with a checklist in her hand.

"Tomatoes," Simmons wrote on the list - below "cantaloupes," "watermelons," "grapes" and "green peppers."

"It's a blessing," she said.

Simmons and Davis are members of People's Baptist Church in Dixie Caverns. The church has operated a food bank for 10 years, feeding the elderly and the poor in Roanoke, Radford and every locality in between.

The two women had come to the food bank Wednesday to share - with about 50 other churches, food pantries, soup kitchens and other agencies that help the hungry - the food bank's largest-ever shipment of fresh produce: 40,000 pounds trucked in from California.

The donated produce was the culmination of the food bank's year-long effort to improve the nutritional value of the food it distributes.

Typically, the food bank has been stocked with more soft drinks and pretzels than it has apples and green beans. Fresh produce was an untapped resource, said Pam Irvine, the food bank's executive director.

"We didn't necessarily pursue that kind of product," she said. "We weren't sure we were prepared and trained to handle it. It's so perishable."

Last year, the food bank set out to find a way to provide more fresh fruits and vegetables for its member agencies - 156 in the Roanoke area alone. Irvine sought help from two University of Southern California School of Medicine instructors who direct "Wholesale to the Hungry," a national program to distribute produce to the needy.

The instructors provided technical and funding assistance to the food bank on a program to "rescue" produce from local wholesalers and retailers and distribute it to the needy. The produce usually is what they call "edible but not sellable" - fruits and vegetables that commercial buyers turn away.

The Kroger Co. in Roanoke stepped in and encouraged produce donations from Southwest Virginia wholesalers and retailers. Kroger also connected with "Fresh Helping Hand," a joint effort between the national Kroger chain and Second Harvest, a national network of food banks, to salvage fresh produce.

The result was Wednesday's delivery of 40,000 pounds of fresh produce, donated through Kroger by seven produce growers and suppliers in California. The food bank received a grant from Second Harvest to cover the transportation cost - about $3,000, Irvine said. The truck left Fresno several days ago, made a stop in Oklahoma and arrived in Roanoke early Wednesday.

"We are not only concerned with providing food to other charities but are concerned with the nutritional well-being of our society. Our goal is to change the behavioral patterns of individuals, particularly low-income, to consume healthy foods," she said.

LENGTH: Medium:   62 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  NHAT MEYER Staff Linda Beverly of the Salem Church of 
          God pushes a tall cart of grapes and other fruits and vegetables at 
          the Southwestern Virginia Second Harvest FoodBank warehouse in 
          Roanoke.