— Theresa Isaac
Another fantastic year of community potato harvest has been completed!
On Monday, Sept. 30, Amy Foote, senior area executive chef at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium Alaska Native Medical Center, along with several colleagues, harvested over 175 pounds of Tlingit and Haida potatoes that were grown in the MEFEC Community Garden this year.
A KTUU reporter was present and interviewed Foote and others in her crew regarding the potatoes and the work they are doing at the Alaska Native Medical Center. ANTHC provides health services to Alaska Native and American Indian people in Alaska. Foote and her team use about 60% traditional ingredients in the food they serve. Traditional food helps to bring a familiarity to those who have traveled a long way to be cared for and nourished back to health.
The annual Community Potato Harvest was Tuesday, Oct. 1. It was a beautiful sunny fall day. Registration opened at 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 26 and filled within 20 minutes. Thirty-eight families with approximately 45 youth participated.
At the 9:30 a.m. harvest, Flat Stanley from a second-grade classroom in Wisconsin attended for a photo shoot to help teach kids in Wisconsin about agriculture in Alaska. We provided bags, with the children receiving their own small bag for digging.
Melissa Clampitt, program coordinator and Jodie Anderson, IANRE director, gave brief introductions about growing, harvesting and storing potatoes, as well as information about the different potato varieties to each group. After harvesting, the potatoes harvested by each group were weighed. Participants also received a packet full of Cooperative Extension Service potato publications. The day ended with a total harvest of 1,008.8 pounds of potatoes from 134 varieties.
The children had so much fun, with one little boy looking like he had already been eating potatoes, and parents having to chase little ones across the wide open field.
On Wednesday morning, MEFEC lifted the remainder of the crop and a group of volunteers with the Valley Thanksgiving Blessing came and gleaned the rest of the potatoes. They gleaned a total of 603 pounds of potatoes. With Gino Graziano and Joey Slowik donating another 470 pounds from their potato research, the second day harvest brought in a total of 1,074 pounds of potatoes going to the Valley Thanksgiving Blessing. This harvest is coordinated through the Food Bank of Alaska and meals are distributed to local families in need the Saturday prior to Thanksgiving.
In 2023, the Food Bank distributed 2,525 turkeys with all the side dishes. We are honored to be able to help provide these meals to our community.
Staff and faculty also harvested some potatoes as well, for a total of 1,760 pounds harvested from our plot, 175 pounds from ANTHC and 470 pounds from research.
MEFEC would like to extend a huge thank you to Christine Macknicki from the Alaska Division of Agriculture’s Plant Materials Center for the donation of the seed potatoes.
We are already looking forward to next year!
