Pennsylvania

Meet Walter

It’s hard to go hungry when tens of thousands of potatoes are free for the taking each year. And that’s the case in rural Pennsylvania, where two Lutherans had what some might call a crazy idea.

Several years ago, when Walter and Linda Zawaski heard that some of their fellow farmers were giving their excess crops away to needy families, they were inspired. They already had a portion of their own farm that was sitting idle. Why not use it to help feed people who would benefit most?

So in 2009 the Zawaskis started “The Potato Project” on 1.5 acres of their land. They harvested and donated potatoes to local food banks and pantries, helping to keep hungry people in their community fed.

Three years later, the project has grown to include 10 more acres of land and yields 58,000 pounds of potatoes each year, serving 13 separate food banks and affecting hundreds of lives. That kind of growth, though, required more work and funding than the Zawaskis could supply.

It was a grant from ELCA World Hunger that helped Walter and Linda continue their life-changing work. Thanks to this funding, the Zawaskis are harvesting more potatoes and distributing them to even more food banks in the area. They’ve even begun planting corn.

One out of every six members of the Zawaskis’ Pennsylvania community struggles with being hungry. And 48 million people live with hunger nationwide. Ministries like the Potato Project and your gifts to ELCA World Hunger provide innovative solutions to stop hunger in the United States and around the world.

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