Business owner and University of Washington Bothell graduate George Ahearn co-founded the EastWest Food Rescue nonprofit with a simple strategy: “You tell us you’re hungry; we get you food.”
Ahearn, who grew up in Othello in eastern Washington but now lives in Bothell, was prompted to act in April when he learned that onion and potato farmers in his old hometown were unable to sell all their crops due to the coronavirus pandemic.
After hearing that onions would go to waste and potatoes would be plowed under, he started looking for a truck.
One of the first people to respond to Ahearn’s call to action was Nancy Balin, who heads a foundation to fight testicular cancer. Through her business contacts plus other social media responses, people with trucks started volunteering.
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Ahearn said that by May 1, they were rolling on the road, picking up 9 tons of potatoes and onions.
Balin also had connected on Facebook with Farmer Frog, a Woodinville nonprofit educational foundation led by Zsofia Pasztor, who also partners with UW Bothell on community-based learning projects. Farmer Frog had available space for Rotary volunteers to re-bag and distribute the produce. Balin said:
“Everything has been so serendipitous, it’s amazing. That’s how we’ve been running this. We just have an idea and deal with it the best we can.”
The connection led the three to establish the EastWest Food Rescue, where Ahearn finds food through his farmer contacts, Pasztor receives and distributes the food, and Balin coordinates operations.
Semitrucks arrive daily at Farmer Frog where dozens of community volunteers unload and distribute the contents to food banks, tribes, and organizations that span the state.
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They were handling about 300,000 pounds per week by late summer of potatoes, onions, apples, and watermelon. EastWest also distributes 20-pound boxes of fresh produce, dairy and meat products from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmers to Families Food Box Program.
What began as a social media post seeking a volunteer with a truck has turned into an enterprise whose agility would be the envy of any startup. Ahearn, who also runs a nursing business, said:
“I’ve run businesses. I’ve never seen anything scale so quickly.”
Combining areas of skill, Ahearn has turned a phone call into thousands of pounds of produce and has grown a Facebook post into a nonprofit that has fed hundreds of thousands of people. He said:
“It’s really just finding a way to connect the dots. I was amazed to see a potato give people hope and to bring tears to people on both sides — the donors and the recipients. A potato can give people purpose. So, figure out what dots you have in your life and try to connect those and make it easier for someone.”
His non-profit has since moved nearly eight million pounds of produce from farms in eastern Washington to the western part of the state for distribution to hundreds of food banks and meal programs.
