Sustainable Renton, a nonprofit, volunteer-run organization based in Renton, redistributes food from grocery stores, food banks and gardens to anyone who needs it — and it is currently in the midst of re-thinking how it does so.

Since its founding in 2010, Sustainable Renton has shifted in how it distributes this “gleaned” food: extra produce, dry goods, meats, dairy, and more that food businesses around the community would otherwise throw out. Sustainable Renton picks this food up, sorts it, and redistributes it to those who need it.

In 2020, the pandemic caused the nonprofit to come up with a socially-distanced way of doing its work. What came about was the free grocery store. For three and a half years since, 40-60 volunteers set up tables in St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church parking lot on Edmonds Avenue (across from McKnight Middle School) every Monday night and handed out sorted food to patrons in cars for free. The program has no religious affiliation.

Within the years this program existed, more than 3 million pounds of food were redistributed into the community, according to Sustainable Renton. At the end of 2023, Sustainable Renton put a close on the free grocery store.

“We were realizing it wasn’t fair to our volunteers,” said Hannah Flory, vice president of Sustainable Renton. In the winter, the hours standing in the cold to pass out food was hard on volunteers, and many became less regular in that time.

“It wasn’t sustainable,” Flory said.

In addition, much of the gleaning work fell on a few individuals, which stressed the capacity of the program, Flory said. One individual in the company gleaned much of the food for each week.

“Our project manager was doing over 30 hours a week of volunteer work, and they took a much-needed retirement,” Flory said.

Realizing how much toll the free grocery store took on volunteers, but also that it rode so heavily on a few individuals, Flory said that as the company looks for different ways to bring out its mission, it wants to stay closer to what’s in the name: sustainability, firstly, and Renton.

“I would like to see us a little closer to home. I think if Sustainable Renton is in our name, we should be really focusing on empowering the community here, and there’s a lot of different things that are important to us outside of food rescue, like education and community empowerment,” she said.

Sustainable Renton also hosts community workshops and a lecture series called Sustainable Talks, which teach about gardening, nutrition and more. Flory hopes to make those more regular, she said.

Sustainable Renton also operates a community garden, which is located at Celebration Foursquare Church on Nile Avenue, a few blocks from Hazen High School. The garden includes plots growing food specifically for Sustainable Renton and plots of community gardeners, who are encouraged to donate their extra produce to the cause. From the garden, 50-80 pounds of food is delivered every week to the Don Persson Renton Senior Activity Center in Renton, which has a free produce stand. Sustainable Renton’s changes are largely focusing on how to utilize this garden and others in the area, Flory said.

In recent weeks, gardeners planted an additional 400 square feet of produce to eventually give to the Don Persson Renton Senior Activity Center, according to the company. Sustainable Renton volunteers will work to keep this area watered and maintained.

Sustainable Renton also delivers produce to the Family First Center in Renton and keeps seven little free pantries around the Renton area stocked with dry goods, Flory said. Sustainable Renton is actively searching for more free pantries to keep stocked.

Sustainable Renton was at the Renton Farmers Market this summer and is reaching out online to local farmers and gardeners, seeing if there is a foundation for building a new system of gleaning from local farms and gardens, Flory said.

“There’s so many growers in Renton,” Flory said. “What do you do when you have 20 extra pounds of zucchini? Being that place for people to offload some of that produce, but also know that it’s going to be used and creating a network within Renton of the community supporting each other…and we can be the facilitators of that.”

As Sustainable Renton re-focuses on what it means to be sustainable, one value is especially important to Flory.

“We have a volunteer who writes our newsletter, and that’s all they do, but that’s their passion and their talent and even if it’s one very niche, small thing, I’m all in support of that,” Flory said. “Because if it’s not joyful, then it’s not going to last.”

Sustainable Renton receives its funding through grants and donations. Last year, the company received one from the Renton Rotary foundation, which gave Sustainable Renton the funds to buy a company van for transporting food. The company has an open board and is actively seeking ideas for plans going forward, and every person involved in the company is a volunteer.

“The free grocery store sprung out of this huge need during COVID-19, and I don’t think that any of us really anticipated it going as long as it did,” Flory said. “We’re ecstatic that we were able to keep it going for three and a half years, but we have to keep that top of mind of why we had to stop, to make sure that whatever we do going forward is something that we can manage.”

More information about Sustainable Renton can be found at www.sustainablerenton.org.

Peppers and lettuce in the garden. Photo courtesy Hannah Flory