By: Grace Powers
The Community Solutions Columbus team and Advocates for Ohio’s Future visited the Mid-Ohio Food Collective’s Hilltop Farm on Wednesday October 1. Mid-Ohio Food Collective (MOFC) is a partner of AOF through its membership with Ohio Association of Foodbanks serving twenty counties in central and eastern Ohio. Not only does MOFC distribute millions of pounds of food every year (83 million pounds in 2024) to over 600 local food banks and pantries, but they are also diligently working to address food insecurity in a variety of ways.
Meals, markets, and wrap around services
MOFC runs several community kitchens as well as partnering with schools to provide healthy meals for kids, including meals through the summer. They offer eight, soon to be nine, markets that allow individuals to have a grocery shopping experience at no cost. Most of the markets are in areas of poverty in Franklin County and offer additional support services like help applying for SNAP and WIC or finding low- or no-cost health insurance.
MOFC works with healthcare providers and insurers to get patients access to fresh healthy foods and nutrition education through their Farmacy program.
Then, of course, their farms!
Meals Mid-Ohio Food Collective’s properties, technology, and outreach
MOFC runs two farms, Farm on the Hilltop and NBC4, and several community gardens. As previously mentioned, we toured Hilltop, and it was beautiful. Hallie Carrino-Lee, the Government Relations and Advocacy Manager for MOFC, led the tour and shared so much insight with us. The farm is on land that used to be home to a psychiatric hospital, so a lot of work is going into reviving the soil with help from OSU, below.
There is an emphasis on using technology with traditional techniques to make best use of the land and facilities. A lot of the growing is done through hydroponics, both vertical and horizontal. They are using greenhouses, a Freight Farm and outdoor growing using raised beds and Gardensoxx. An orchard was planted just in the last couple of weeks, and they have begun keeping bees.
The farm has harvested around 5000 pounds of produce so far this year
This year so far, the farm has harvested around 5000 pounds of produce, an impressive number but Hallie reminded us it is a drop in the bucket when it comes to providing the food that is needed.
Along with the growing food itself, Hilltop also provides education to children and the community.
They show kids the process of seed to plant and use their in-house kitchen to prepare food from the produce just picked. For some of the kids it is the first time they have seen fresh food prepared. They educate community members on different growing methods and sustainability, encouraging growing food at home.
Recent high school graduates can apply for their mentee program in which they learn about growing, agricultural technology, and sustainability. The mentees design and run their own projects to test out different plants and growing methods.
Thank you so much to Hallie and Mid-Ohio Food Collective for taking the time to share your amazing work with us! MOFC is always looking for volunteers, if you are interested in helping or want to share with others, sign up to volunteer.
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