September 8th, 2021 by WCBC Radio
The pictures coming out of Louisiana show just how devastating Hurricane Ida was to areas there. WBAL reports many people are without homes and efforts to feed people are in high gear, and some farmers in Maryland are doing their part to help. Volunteers spent the morning picking corn at First Fruits Farm in Freeland. For 23 years, the nonprofit farm has been giving away everything they grow. Corn from the farm is headed to hurricane relief in Louisiana. Rick Bernstein is the farm's executive director. "We have been organizing for the past week, vegetables from here, but also talking to farm friends that we have throughout the state that produce other things," Bernstein said.
There are 27 for-profit farms that are giving away food for the effort — all but two are from Maryland.
In addition to the vegetables, other farms are providing a variety of food like milk, cheese yogurt other vegetables, dairy and chicken.
First Fruits reached out to the convoy Hope To Help to get it all there.
"That sends semi-loads of food, usually snacks and waters, to see if they would be interested in receiving fresh produce from us to take into areas impacted by Hurricane Ida. They are going to organize some trucks to send the produce from here down to Louisiana," First Fruits Farm manager Jamison Hunsberger said.
Volunteers said they are thrilled to be part of the effort.
"It's always very grounding and humbling to come here and give back to communities in any way that we can," volunteer Amy Adams said.
"I often feel like sometimes there's not much I can do to try to help in large situations like that, so being able to come here and provide that for them during this difficult time is really important," volunteer Natalie Althoff said.
There should be four tractor-trailers of food. The plan is for it to get there by Wednesday.
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