On Sunday afternoons when the Morristown Farmers Market closes, several vendors donate their unsold fresh fruits, vegetables and breads to the Community Soup Kitchen.

MORRISTOWN, N.J.—Morristown Farmers Market fresh fruits, crisp vegetables and savory bread are new, healthful options for Community Soup Kitchen visitors for the first time in its 25-year history.

When 300 daily visitors arrive for a hot lunch at the soup kitchen’s dining room, they can also shop for fresh produce and bread to prepare their own meals at home. Five farmers and a baker are donating their unsold food each Sunday afternoon when the farmers market closes.

The donation drive, which started in June, grew out of the soup kitchen’s “Healthy Choice” program, an initiative started in 2009 to bring healthier food choices to the soup kitchen guests. It was made possible through a grant from the Fannie E. Rippel Foundation of Morristown. In what seems to be a growing national trend, vendors are donating their unsold food from farmers markets to soup kitchens.

“Tomatoes, corn, zucchini, peaches—typical farmers market fare. We have four, five sometimes six tables filled with hundreds of pounds of food each day for guests to take home,” said Lois Nichols, assistant director of the Community Soup Kitchen and Outreach Program.  The nonprofit organization rents space from two churches on South Street to host the soup kitchen and its outreach services arm that began six years ago. Organizers also host educational workshops on healthful food preparation; the most recent one was on how to make a vegetable casserole.

Participants in the market’s donation program include Baker’s Bounty in Union County, E.R. & Son Organic Farm in Middlesex County, Grossman Farms in Mercer County, Michisk Farms and Pittstown Fruit Farms in Hunterdon County and Union Hill Farms in Morris County. People can also donate at the market by dropping purchased items into the Community Soup Kitchen’s container.

While vendors do not get money for unsold items, a good feeling comes from the experience. Kim LaPrete, owner of Baker’s Bounty, said, “It’s nice to know that it’s going to a good cause.” Through its participation in the Union Square Green Market in Manhattan, LaPrete’s company also donates to City Harvest, which facilitates food donations to food pantries and soup kitchens throughout New York City.

Marla Drury, director of development and community outreach at the Community Soup Kitchen and Outreach Program, said Morristown Memorial Hospital nurses conducted free health screenings during the past five years and determined that 80 percent of the soup kitchen’s visitors have health issues such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

“The nurses explained to our volunteers the huge connection between food choices and the well-being of our guests,” Drury said, acknowledging that it is “more expensive to buy fresh produce and easier and faster to pop open canned food.” The grant money and educational component of the program is helping with these issues, she said.

For the second year, the Minneapolis Farmers Market is donating its leftover bounty to a local soup kitchen and other nonprofits. In the first three weeks of this market’s season, 18,737 pounds of produce were collected–4,312 pounds more than in the same period last year, according to its website.

In 2009, vendors at a farmers market in Bridgeport, Conn., donated more than 10,000 pounds of end-of-day produce to a local soup kitchen and a family re-entry program that helps people released from prison begin their lives anew.

The Community Soup Kitchen and Outreach Program in Morristown operates six days a week at the Church of the Redeemer and on Saturdays at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Thirty-two religious establishments and corporations supply the daily meals and volunteer servers to the area’s homeless, working poor and elderly.

More stories by Stacey