TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND pounds of tomatoes, carrots, lettuce and other fresh, locally grown produce.

That’s how much food has been delivered, on average, to the Missoula Food Bank each of the past seven years through Harvesting Community, a partnership of UM's Program in Ecological Science and Garden City Harvest, a local nonprofit organization.

The PEAS/GCH collaboration was
recognized with the prestigious 2004 Jimmy
and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for

Campus Community Collaboration. The $10,000 award will support further growth of the program, which supplies vegetables to not only the Missoula Food Bank, but also several other organizations serving low-income and homeless Montanans.

At UM, more than 600 undergraduate and graduate students have received a valuable service-learning education since the creation of PEAS in 1997. Under the direction of the Environmental Studies Program’s Neva Hassanein, assistant professor, and Josh

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Slotnick, adjunct faculty member, PEAS combines traditional academics with hands-on work at a 6.5-acre farm two miles from campus in the Rattlesnake Valley. From managing the greenhouse in February to harvesting pumpkins in October, students learn about ecologically conscious farming methods, food’s role in connecting people and place, and meeting very real production deadlines.

The Carter Partnership Award is hosted in Montana by Montana Campus Compact, a statewide nonprofit coalition of college and
university presidents.