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“When the community comes together, [it is] a beautiful thing to see through this tragedy. No one asked about party affiliations...we can come together. We need to focus on each other.”
Zsofia Pasztor prefaced this quote by reciting the saying “If there’s a will, there’s a way.” These statements speak volumes about Zsofia's zeal for her work and love for her community. Zsofia is the Executive Co-Director and Founder of Farmer Frog, a “hands-on outdoor education” nonprofit based out of Woodinville, Washington. Yet Farmer Frog is about so much more than simply gardening and has been since its inception in 2009. Zsofia said the organization grew out of an effort to help families forced to live out of their cars in the local Olivia Park Elementary School parking lot after the 2008 financial crisis. She created a school garden that successfully fed hundreds of families. After Farmer Frog was established, they brought gardening into the classroom, and increased their educational offerings, such as a lesson on how to grow outdoor edible gardens as well as various horticulture classes. They also began to offer teacher training, camp activities, field trips, and youth events at their HQ Paradise Farm facility and at school sites. More recently, Farmer Frog further evolved in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Zsofia told me that they began bringing food to residents who were confined to their homes. The organization has grown exponentially and currently serves more than 500,000 families, with the help of numerous partner groups. None of this would be possible without Zsofia’s passion for food cultivation.
She explained that she was eight years old when she first began caring for plants and gardens. Her love for this work blossomed into career interests, and she received multiple certifications, including being a CPH, an EPC, TRAQ (Tree Risk Assessor Qualified), a certified arborist, horticulturist, permaculture designer, LID consultant and designer, and commercial urban agriculturist. Zsofia is also a landscape designer. She shared the joy she gets out of “taking care of life and people.” She further elaborated what this means to her:
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“We are working to leave a footprint on the world for future generations. It is tangible, not heavy but light. We create habitats for wildlife, our growing spaces helping the ecosystem, [so we] don’t need to worry about a negative impact. We are doing our best to leave this place better than we found it.”
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Farmer Frog has certainly had an impact on the lives of many within the past year. They developed partnerships with new organizations that helped with providing produce and distributing it, according to Zsofia. Some of these groups are EastWest Food Rescue, National Tribal Emergency Management Council, International Nutritional Sustainable Partners, Culturas Unidas Food Network, The Silent Task Force, Nakani Native Program, as well as “over 600 churches, schools, school districts, food banks, food pantries, and grassroots organizations,” said Zsofia. Earlier on in the pandemic, Farmer Frog, in partnership with EastWest Food Rescue, mainly sourced food from external farms, and Zsofia added that their internal production went down. Currently, however, Farmer Frog is “shifting back to focusing on produce that is hard to get from other folks,” particularly greens, which Zsofia said are more difficult to transport.
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Zsofia also explained how they originally came in contact with The Farmlink Project: “We first talked to Farmlink back in last summer when our EastWest Food Rescue and Farmer Frog team made a joint call and talked to several people, including Lindsay.” She is referring to Lindsay Carlin, co-lead of the Hunger Outreach Team/Placement Team at The Farmlink Project, who has helped coordinate deliveries with Farmer Frog and connected me with Zsofia. Since mid-December, The Farmlink Project has facilitated the delivery of 255,000 pounds of onions and 42,500 pounds of potatoes to Farmer Frog from Easterday Farms in Pasco, Washington and Jensen Family Produce in Warden, Washington.
So who has this produce served? Parts of these loads were delivered directly to residents throughout Washington state, while other parts were delivered in a more unconventional way: airlifts. Zsofia said Farmer Frog has helped with the National Tribal Emergency Management Council’s airlift project to fly PPE and food to remote villages and tribes—places that are difficult to reach for delivery trucks. She expressed gratitude to the DART pilots who volunteered their time, fuel, and planes to carry out this important mission. Zsofia explained that Farmer Frog has served “people who haven’t seen fresh food for weeks.” She emphasized ways in which those delivering food would provide the recipients with a “connection to the real world” and someone to chat with from their window when they couldn’t otherwise interact with people face to face.
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Zsofia is a force to be reckoned with. She has dedicated herself to helping grow Farmer Frog from a community-based organization that served about 25,000 people to one that serves over 2 million people in Washington state and 1 million people across the rest of the US, 315,000 of which are indigenous tribal members. Through their work with the National Tribal Emergency Management Council, they have also delivered to tribes in 34 states. Still, Zsofia’s mission always returns to metaphorically, and literally, planting the seed. In her eyes, education about growing food is of the utmost importance: “People’s eyes light up because they now understand something they didn’t before….The best customer is an educated customer.” She shares the same goals as The Farmlink Project: to get nutritious, fresh food into the hands of those who need it most.
To learn more about Zsofia, check out her Farmer Frog profile and TED talk.
These changes are great. But how’s it all going to be funded?
During the comment process, Farmlink, as well as other food rescue organizations and coalitions, raised critical questions about how the strategy would be funded and, as a result, which measures are feasible. In particular, we hoped for more clarity beyond the draft’s statement that the USDA would use American Rescue Plan Act and Inflation Reduction Act funds and the EPA would use Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds. Of the 86 programs or initiatives reviewed in the final strategy, only 15 are completely new programs announced in the strategy.
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The other 71 are existing programs or initiatives that either already have a food loss and waste focus or that the national strategy has repackaged as food loss and waste solutions. While we had hopes of new, innovative programs being included in the strategy, the good news with these 71 programs is that most, if not all, are already funded, meaning that they are not reliant on an increasingly turbulent Congress for implementation. Of the 15 new programs, which included the EPA’s new consumer education campaign and several new cooperative agreements with land-grant universities, only 2 had specific funding mechanisms. It has become increasingly clear that food rescue organizations and other stakeholders in the food and agriculture space should not consider this strategy as a new rollout of FLW solutions, programs, and funding but rather as an evaluation of the current resources and solutions and how each can be most effectively utilized to achieve the strategy’s goals. In particular, the framing of many of USDA’s programs as FLW solutions offers opportunities to utilize existing funding, data, and infrastructure to solve one of the United States’s most pressing problems.
Whats next?
Now that we have the strategy, it’s time to truly take advantage of the opportunities it presents. In the immediate future at Farmlink, we’re excited to continue optimizing Section 32 as a critical on-farm food loss solution as we anticipate significant surplus recoveries in the fall. As we move forward, we continue to advocate for dignity with food distribution, emphasizing cultural appropriateness and quality in every pound of food we rescue. As outlined in our comments, food rescue organizations are critical stakeholders and thought partners for the agencies. Our inclusion in the strategy as such is an opportunity we are taking full advantage of to help guide federal action to support farmers, feed communities, and heal the planet.
< Back“When the community comes together, [it is] a beautiful thing to see through this tragedy. No one asked about party affiliations...we can come together. We need to focus on each other.”
Zsofia Pasztor prefaced this quote by reciting the saying “If there’s a will, there’s a way.” These statements speak volumes about Zsofia's zeal for her work and love for her community. Zsofia is the Executive Co-Director and Founder of Farmer Frog, a “hands-on outdoor education” nonprofit based out of Woodinville, Washington. Yet Farmer Frog is about so much more than simply gardening and has been since its inception in 2009. Zsofia said the organization grew out of an effort to help families forced to live out of their cars in the local Olivia Park Elementary School parking lot after the 2008 financial crisis. She created a school garden that successfully fed hundreds of families. After Farmer Frog was established, they brought gardening into the classroom, and increased their educational offerings, such as a lesson on how to grow outdoor edible gardens as well as various horticulture classes. They also began to offer teacher training, camp activities, field trips, and youth events at their HQ Paradise Farm facility and at school sites. More recently, Farmer Frog further evolved in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Zsofia told me that they began bringing food to residents who were confined to their homes. The organization has grown exponentially and currently serves more than 500,000 families, with the help of numerous partner groups. None of this would be possible without Zsofia’s passion for food cultivation.
She explained that she was eight years old when she first began caring for plants and gardens. Her love for this work blossomed into career interests, and she received multiple certifications, including being a CPH, an EPC, TRAQ (Tree Risk Assessor Qualified), a certified arborist, horticulturist, permaculture designer, LID consultant and designer, and commercial urban agriculturist. Zsofia is also a landscape designer. She shared the joy she gets out of “taking care of life and people.” She further elaborated what this means to her:
“We are working to leave a footprint on the world for future generations. It is tangible, not heavy but light. We create habitats for wildlife, our growing spaces helping the ecosystem, [so we] don’t need to worry about a negative impact. We are doing our best to leave this place better than we found it.”
Farmer Frog has certainly had an impact on the lives of many within the past year. They developed partnerships with new organizations that helped with providing produce and distributing it, according to Zsofia. Some of these groups are EastWest Food Rescue, National Tribal Emergency Management Council, International Nutritional Sustainable Partners, Culturas Unidas Food Network, The Silent Task Force, Nakani Native Program, as well as “over 600 churches, schools, school districts, food banks, food pantries, and grassroots organizations,” said Zsofia. Earlier on in the pandemic, Farmer Frog, in partnership with EastWest Food Rescue, mainly sourced food from external farms, and Zsofia added that their internal production went down. Currently, however, Farmer Frog is “shifting back to focusing on produce that is hard to get from other folks,” particularly greens, which Zsofia said are more difficult to transport.
Zsofia also explained how they originally came in contact with The Farmlink Project: “We first talked to Farmlink back in last summer when our EastWest Food Rescue and Farmer Frog team made a joint call and talked to several people, including Lindsay.” She is referring to Lindsay Carlin, co-lead of the Hunger Outreach Team/Placement Team at The Farmlink Project, who has helped coordinate deliveries with Farmer Frog and connected me with Zsofia. Since mid-December, The Farmlink Project has facilitated the delivery of 255,000 pounds of onions and 42,500 pounds of potatoes to Farmer Frog from Easterday Farms in Pasco, Washington and Jensen Family Produce in Warden, Washington.
So who has this produce served? Parts of these loads were delivered directly to residents throughout Washington state, while other parts were delivered in a more unconventional way: airlifts. Zsofia said Farmer Frog has helped with the National Tribal Emergency Management Council’s airlift project to fly PPE and food to remote villages and tribes—places that are difficult to reach for delivery trucks. She expressed gratitude to the DART pilots who volunteered their time, fuel, and planes to carry out this important mission. Zsofia explained that Farmer Frog has served “people who haven’t seen fresh food for weeks.” She emphasized ways in which those delivering food would provide the recipients with a “connection to the real world” and someone to chat with from their window when they couldn’t otherwise interact with people face to face.
Zsofia is a force to be reckoned with. She has dedicated herself to helping grow Farmer Frog from a community-based organization that served about 25,000 people to one that serves over 2 million people in Washington state and 1 million people across the rest of the US, 315,000 of which are indigenous tribal members. Through their work with the National Tribal Emergency Management Council, they have also delivered to tribes in 34 states. Still, Zsofia’s mission always returns to metaphorically, and literally, planting the seed. In her eyes, education about growing food is of the utmost importance: “People’s eyes light up because they now understand something they didn’t before….The best customer is an educated customer.” She shares the same goals as The Farmlink Project: to get nutritious, fresh food into the hands of those who need it most.
To learn more about Zsofia, check out her Farmer Frog profile and TED talk.
Zsofia Pasztor
Executive Co-Director and Founder of Farmer Frog
“When the community comes together, [it is] a beautiful thing to see through this tragedy. No one asked about party affiliations...we can come together. We need to focus on each other.”
Zsofia Pasztor prefaced this quote by reciting the saying “If there’s a will, there’s a way.” These statements speak volumes about Zsofia's zeal for her work and love for her community. Zsofia is the Executive Co-Director and Founder of Farmer Frog, a “hands-on outdoor education” nonprofit based out of Woodinville, Washington. Yet Farmer Frog is about so much more than simply gardening and has been since its inception in 2009. Zsofia said the organization grew out of an effort to help families forced to live out of their cars in the local Olivia Park Elementary School parking lot after the 2008 financial crisis. She created a school garden that successfully fed hundreds of families. After Farmer Frog was established, they brought gardening into the classroom, and increased their educational offerings, such as a lesson on how to grow outdoor edible gardens as well as various horticulture classes. They also began to offer teacher training, camp activities, field trips, and youth events at their HQ Paradise Farm facility and at school sites. More recently, Farmer Frog further evolved in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Zsofia told me that they began bringing food to residents who were confined to their homes. The organization has grown exponentially and currently serves more than 500,000 families, with the help of numerous partner groups. None of this would be possible without Zsofia’s passion for food cultivation.
She explained that she was eight years old when she first began caring for plants and gardens. Her love for this work blossomed into career interests, and she received multiple certifications, including being a CPH, an EPC, TRAQ (Tree Risk Assessor Qualified), a certified arborist, horticulturist, permaculture designer, LID consultant and designer, and commercial urban agriculturist. Zsofia is also a landscape designer. She shared the joy she gets out of “taking care of life and people.” She further elaborated what this means to her:
“We are working to leave a footprint on the world for future generations. It is tangible, not heavy but light. We create habitats for wildlife, our growing spaces helping the ecosystem, [so we] don’t need to worry about a negative impact. We are doing our best to leave this place better than we found it.”
Farmer Frog has certainly had an impact on the lives of many within the past year. They developed partnerships with new organizations that helped with providing produce and distributing it, according to Zsofia. Some of these groups are EastWest Food Rescue, National Tribal Emergency Management Council, International Nutritional Sustainable Partners, Culturas Unidas Food Network, The Silent Task Force, Nakani Native Program, as well as “over 600 churches, schools, school districts, food banks, food pantries, and grassroots organizations,” said Zsofia. Earlier on in the pandemic, Farmer Frog, in partnership with EastWest Food Rescue, mainly sourced food from external farms, and Zsofia added that their internal production went down. Currently, however, Farmer Frog is “shifting back to focusing on produce that is hard to get from other folks,” particularly greens, which Zsofia said are more difficult to transport.
Zsofia also explained how they originally came in contact with The Farmlink Project: “We first talked to Farmlink back in last summer when our EastWest Food Rescue and Farmer Frog team made a joint call and talked to several people, including Lindsay.” She is referring to Lindsay Carlin, co-lead of the Hunger Outreach Team/Placement Team at The Farmlink Project, who has helped coordinate deliveries with Farmer Frog and connected me with Zsofia. Since mid-December, The Farmlink Project has facilitated the delivery of 255,000 pounds of onions and 42,500 pounds of potatoes to Farmer Frog from Easterday Farms in Pasco, Washington and Jensen Family Produce in Warden, Washington.
So who has this produce served? Parts of these loads were delivered directly to residents throughout Washington state, while other parts were delivered in a more unconventional way: airlifts. Zsofia said Farmer Frog has helped with the National Tribal Emergency Management Council’s airlift project to fly PPE and food to remote villages and tribes—places that are difficult to reach for delivery trucks. She expressed gratitude to the DART pilots who volunteered their time, fuel, and planes to carry out this important mission. Zsofia explained that Farmer Frog has served “people who haven’t seen fresh food for weeks.” She emphasized ways in which those delivering food would provide the recipients with a “connection to the real world” and someone to chat with from their window when they couldn’t otherwise interact with people face to face.
Zsofia is a force to be reckoned with. She has dedicated herself to helping grow Farmer Frog from a community-based organization that served about 25,000 people to one that serves over 2 million people in Washington state and 1 million people across the rest of the US, 315,000 of which are indigenous tribal members. Through their work with the National Tribal Emergency Management Council, they have also delivered to tribes in 34 states. Still, Zsofia’s mission always returns to metaphorically, and literally, planting the seed. In her eyes, education about growing food is of the utmost importance: “People’s eyes light up because they now understand something they didn’t before….The best customer is an educated customer.” She shares the same goals as The Farmlink Project: to get nutritious, fresh food into the hands of those who need it most.
To learn more about Zsofia, check out her Farmer Frog profile and TED talk.
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