MMSCC favorite Charity Is Expanding

MMSCC’s favorite charity is expanding into for-profit work, per this recent article from the Lewiston Sun Journal. Since the onset of the pandemic, the Good Shepherd Food Bank, Maine’s largest hunger-relief organization, which supplies more than 400 partner agencies, has received $1,250 in donations from our club (and more from individual members). This fall, with $25 million in capital from MacKenzie Scott (ex-wife of Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos) and a direct investment of $2.5 million from Good Shepherd itself, the organization will launch a subsidiary called Harvesting Good, which will grow, process, freeze and distribute fresh vegetables. The first crop will be broccoli grown on Circle B Farms (photo) in Caribou. The fresh-frozen broccoli will be sold across the Northeast (and appear in Good Shepherd’s local food banks) and the income will help support the not-for-profit parent organization. Harvesting Good will also create jobs in Maine and northern New England. Good Shepherd already invests more than $1 million annually in some 80 Maine farms that last year grew 2.2 million pounds of produce. Harvesting Good aims to produce a million pounds of broccoli in 2023 and eventually introduce six frozen products in all, with a long-term goal of $15 million to $20 million in annual sales. We are very happy to support Good Shepherd—food insecurity was a problem in Maine before Covid and will remain one after the virus has receded—and we are pleased that, in a small way, we have been able to contribute to the establishment of this creative new venture. —your MMSCC Board of Directors