SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) -- A San Francisco Food Bank volunteer working to connect slightly blemished produce with hungry families was honored Tuesday by President Obama at the White House.

Gary Maxworthy, along with philanthropists and community workers across the country, was recognized for developing innovative solutions to social problems.

A 15-year volunteer at the San Francisco Food Bank, Maxworthy developed a program known as "Farm to Family" that distributes unmarketable fruits and vegetables to food banks across the state.

According to the SFFB, unmarketable produce can be blemished, imperfectly shaped, oddly sized or just overly abundant. Previously such fruits and vegetables were thrown away, plowed under or fed to animals.

"We feel thrilled to have someone who has made such a huge impact here in San Francisco be sharing it with the White House," SFFB executive director Paul Ash said Tuesday. As a single person, Maxworthy "has changed the way thousands of people eat."

Now retired, Maxworthy drew on his experience in the food brokerage industry to connect California food growers and packers directly to food banks to ensure this produce goes to feed the hungry. He drove out to the Central Valley to meet with farmers and packers in person, Ash said, back in 2001. The food bank's first delivery was a large quantity of oranges.

According to the SFFB, Farm to Family will distribute 78 million pounds of fresh produce this year to three million California residents at risk of hunger. More than 100 food growers and packers supply fresh, healthy produce to 40 California food banks.

The program caught the attention of the White House's new Office of Social Innovation and was honored Tuesday as an innovative non-profit program with demonstrated results. As obesity and health increasingly become social problems, policy makers are examining how to help hungry families access healthy foods when more caloric fare is typically cheaper.

"If you're a low-income family with a limited amount of money, you're not headed to the produce aisle," Ash said.

Maxworthy and his fellow honorees are being asked to work with the government to apply these success stories on a national level, according to a press release from the White House.

In a press release, Maxworthy said he hopes the program can serve as an example, "helping other agricultural states divert healthy produce that might otherwise end up in landfills," to feed the hungry.

In San Francisco, 16.8 million pounds of fresh produce will be distributed as a result of Farm to Family, according to Ash. The food bank collects truckloads of peaches, cherries, nectarines, leafy greens, artichokes and other locally grown items throughout the year, he said.

Volunteers inspect and package the produce, then distribute it "farmers market-style" at schools, senior centers and other areas with a low-income population.

"Sometimes our produce is fresher than the product you get at the supermarket," Ash said.

http://www.purposeprize.org/finalists/finalists2007/maxworthy.cfm

(Copyright 2009, Bay City News, All rights reserved.)