Planting the seeds: Nonprofit trying to aid food bank, obtain land

A nonprofit hoping to begin growing fresh produce for the Yuma Community Food Bank this season is holding a fundraiser Saturday, while continuing an unexpected search for two acres of farmland its founders thought it already had.

Love Tree Farm President Issac Russell said Love Tree Farm is the result of two years of work by him, his wife and Vice President Lia Littlewood and others in the community to try to solve the paradox of high food insecurity rates in the midst of one of the country’s most productive agricultural areas.

“There are farmers here commercially who do five crops a year. We don’t have frosts, we don’t have winter. We have ample water, amazing soil, 350 sunny days a year. This is a place where no one should be hungry, and almost 50 percent of our kids are food insecure,” he said.

Russell said Love Tree Farm has a two-fold mission; to provide the food bank with fresh vegetables, fruit and herbs daily, and to teach residents how they can produce enough fresh food in their backyards to reduce or eliminate trips to the supermarket.

It has already done some of the latter through workshops at the food bank and local high schools, he added.

It took two years to form the 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, get certified by the state as a Qualified Charitable Organization for tax credits, and get the funding and supplies together for its first year.

“We have hundreds of thousands of seeds ready to go, we have equipment, we have fundraising mechanism, we have the board of directors, everything’s in place,” Russell said.

“But we just lost the two acres we’d been promised because the owners got cancer, and they’re going to be selling their land and moving, right at the last minute, the beginning of September.”

So he’s been scrambling for the last month to find two readyto-farm acres, just as the winter produce season is getting started, looking at several options which didn’t work out.

Love Tree Farm has the budget to lease land, he said, and he hopes to find something in the Yuma Valley to make the planned daily deliveries to the food bank more feasible.

Meanwhile, it’s moving ahead with the event, from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday at the Pump House, a private home at 14342 S. Avenue A. Light refreshments will be served, and Russell said that while they’d welcome donations made on the spot, its real purpose is to educate potential donors about the state tax credit program.

“It’s an informational meeting. You don’t have to donate at all, but please come learn how to keep your tax money here for good causes,” he said.

The nonprofit certified through a Arizona Department of Revenue process meets the criteria for donors to receive charitable tax credits for donations made over the course of the year, up to $400 for an individual or $800 for a couple filing jointly.

He said future plans include expanding the local farm to 10 acres and a long-term goal of helping form a network of similar nonprofit farms feeding into food banks around the state.

“The first step, though, is to get people to change their understanding of their income tax. It’s their money and they can tell the government what to do with it. They don’t have to just give it blindly to Phoenix. It’s a big change,” he said.

And, of course, to find two acres. “Everything’s in place, we just need the dirt,” Russell said.

For more information about Love Tree Farm, including directions to Saturday’s event, visit www.lovetreefarm.org, find its Facebook page or call (928) 9417800.