In what she now laughingly refers to as her "gardening accident," Amy Grey, a book designer and mom in Moscow, Idaho, grew two-hundred extra heads of lettuce in her first-ever vegetable garden. This was in 2006, when her boys, Tom and Sam, were then a boisterous five and two. They were having a terrific time playing in the mud and spreading seeds, and Amy reveling in their joy (and being able to get some work done of her own) did not stop them. Days later, as heads of lettuce began to spring up everywhere Tom and Sam's play seemed a little less benign. For some people, this would have meant a bigger pile of compost. In Amy's case, it translated into the first of hundreds of trips to her local food bank, and a passion for bringing fresh fruits and vegetables to the region's most vulnerable populations.

Working alone at first and then with volunteers, Amy created Backyard Harvest to connect local gardeners, farmers, and fruit tree owners to area food banks and meal programs. It was a simple idea that soon caught on beyond the rolling hills of the Palouse—transforming the original donation of two-hundred heads of lettuce into over 130,000 lbs of fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables distributed to thousands of needy families and seniors in California, Idaho, Minnesota, and Washington.