The Green Bag Solution

It has been said that, “It takes a village to raise a child.” We say, “It takes a community to feed the hungry.” How better to address a complex social issue than to find a simple solution? The Ashland Food Project is that simple solution. And here is how it happened…

Ashland OR is an affluent community of 25,000. Home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Ashland Independent Film Festival, Southern Oregon University, over 100 restaurants, arts and crafts abound, thousands of tourist visit each year. Bucolic best describes Ashland. Beneath the bucolic nature of Ashland lays the social ill all too common to most communities: Hunger. To walk down the streets of Ashland, it is difficult to imagine hunger is an issue. And it is not just the homeless or displaced that are hungry. Hunger occurs at many levels. Single parents making minimum wage, retired people on fixed incomes, students struggling to pay rising tuition, couch-surfing adolescents; these are the faces of hunger in Ashland. Rather than ignoring the issue of hunger in Ashland, the community decided to band together to support those in need. Enter the Green Bag Solution.