Denverites managed to take home a literal truckload of potatoes in just 90 minutes on Monday morning.
“Potato Palooza” was supposed to run from 9 a.m. to noon, but organizers closed up shop at 10:30 a.m. after hundreds of people cleared out the bags and buckets of potatoes that had sprawled across a Park Hill parking lot.
“Pretty much as soon as we opened up the market this morning, people were coming in with their bags and their carts, their trucks even,” said Caroline Hissong, communication manager for the nonprofit We Don’t Waste.
Hissong — wearing a potato costume, of course — said the organization had managed to distribute 21 tons of potatoes in a matter of hours.
The nonprofit received the trailer of tubers on Saturday from suppliers in the Midwest, where they were previously headed for the landfill because no one would buy them. Potato farmers around the world have struggled to sell their product amid high yields and fluctuating demand.
Monika Gurung showed up to the palooza early, around 8:45 a.m. and was surprised to see there were already dozens of people picking through the Idaho spuds, which were shaded under tents.
“It was great. I mean, I didn’t think that there would be so many potatoes… (There were) six or seven pallets out, like big pallets and the guy was like, ‘This is not even half,’ Gurung said.
Gurung read a Denverite article about the giveaway over the weekend and told her “neighbors, my friends and everybody.” The appetite was voracious: More than 50,000 people read the Denverite piece over just a few days, plus many more who learned about the event through other means.
Gurung also picked up potatoes for people who couldn’t make it Monday morning, leaving with four full crates of spuds.
“We are from Nepal and one thing to know about Nepalese people is that we literally survive on rice and potatoes almost every single day. So we’re going to make a lot of potato curries. I think we’re going to make some potatoes with lentils as well. And we’re also thinking about making pakora,” Gurung said. “And my sister is thinking about making some French fries. So yeah, we’re going to have potatoes for a good amount of time. I’m really happy about it.”
That’s a relief for her grocery bill — just like the organizers intended.
“I’m so grateful. I feel very blessed to be having these kinds of donations. It just helps a lot, especially with inflation,” she said. “It just helps a lot. I was literally thinking about going and buying potatoes from Costco. It’s not cheap these days. So when I heard about that, I was super grateful.”
The same kinds of events are playing out across the world. In Germany, a Kartoffel-Flut (potato flood) has farmers giving away tons of Solanum tuberosum. In Idaho, one farmer has offered millions of pounds of potatoes for people in need.
Hissong said We Don’t Waste is excited to continue giving out food to the community. One in three Denver adults skips meals because they can’t afford it, according to a recent food insecurity survey report conducted by the city. Nearly half of those surveyed said they skip meals regularly.
“It’s honestly really amazing to see all of this food just immediately back out into the community. When we first got the shipment in, we were a little nervous. It was a lot,” she said. “We weren’t sure if anyone would be interested, but we know that right now food insecurity is a really prevalent issue in our community and everyone’s grocery budgets are a little tight. So we hoped for the best and we put it out there and the community showed up.”