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The SEED Program

SEED The Change

Simple yet powerful community giving

What is the SEED Program?

One way we live out our cooperative values at Open Harvest is through robust community donations. The SEED Program is a new simple yet powerful community giving opportunity that allows customers to “round-up” their grocery bill for local organizations that share a commitment to a healthy community, sustainable food system, and strong local economy.

During a specified month, each organization will be featured and all round-up contributions during that month will be given directly to the recipient organization at the end of each month.

SEED Recipients

2024

Month Organization Total Raised
January Matt Talbot Kitchen & Outreach $1,117.67
February Food Co-op Initiative $1,090.24
March Wachiska Aubudon Society $1,350.97
April Friends of Wilderness Park $1,557.86
May Milkworks $1,662.49
June Wellbeing Initiative $1,166.55
July Nebraska Statewide Arboretum $1,221.28
August Prescott PTO $1,323.59
September Nebraska State Suicide Prevention Coalition
October Open Harvest Community Cooperative Fund
November Community Crops
December Food Bank of Lincoln

2023

Month Organization Total Raised
January Clinic With a Heart $1,439.82
February CASA for Lancaster County $1,220.14
March Sadie Dog Fund $1,526.16
April Nebraska Appleseed $1,570.34
May Prairie Pines $1,330.55
June Stand in For Nebraska $1,330.15
July Great Plains Trails Network $1,346.12
August Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society $1,277.95
September Wildlife Rescue $1,283.31
October Intertribal Spiritual Lodges $1,286.03
November TBA $1,625
December TBA $1,551

2022

Month Organization Amount Raised
January Food Co-op Initiative $1531.16
February KZUM $1749.26
March Community Crops $1928.11
April Art Bus LNK $1883.03
May Southern Heights Food Forest $1823.10
June Lincoln Bike Kitchen $2014.82
July Capital Humane Society $2057.35
August Lincoln Literacy $1786.04
September Asian Community Center $1593.09
October Cooperation Fund $1431.62
November Pine Ridge Coat Drive Transportation Costs $1692.71
December Open Harvest's Relocation

2021

Month Organization Amount Raised
January Lincoln Food Fort $1,442.66
February Great Plains Trail Network $1,471.50
March Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center $2,050.27
April Sunday Farmers' Market $1,706.04
May Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society $1,719.45
June Malone Center $2,022.49
July Montessori School for Young Children $1,414.29
August We Can Do It (F St. Rec Center) $2,241.83
September The Bay $2,209.04
October Matt Talbot Kitchen & Outreach $2,334.87
November Pine Ridge Coat Drive Transportation Costs $2,127.97
December Food Bank of Lincoln $2,124.70

2020

Month Organization Amount Raised
March Community Crops $1,986
April Southern Heights Food Forest $1,205
May HarvAid / Wildlife Rescue $713 / $655
June Lincoln Indian Center $2,435
July ShelterMe $1,910
August Friendship Home $2,166
September Mental Health Association $1,557
October Voices of Hope $1,629
November Food Bank of Lincoln $1,858.16
December Bryan Health $1,972.26

2023 SEED Nominees

Five of the ten 2023 SEED Recipients were chosen by Community Choice during the Board Election. The remaining five organizations were selected by our staff-led Harvaid Committee.

Clinic With A Heart

Clinic with a Heart serves people who are uninsured and underinsured through a ministry of healthcare. Volunteers provide free healthcare with hospitality, dignity and grace. 

Learn more at: clinicwithaheart.org

CASA for Lancaster County

CASA for Lancaster County recruits, trains and supports community volunteers who advocate on behalf of abused and neglected children in Lancaster County Juvenile Court.

Learn more at: casa4lancaster.org

Intertribal Spiritual Lodges

The goal is to combine Indigenous cultural and spiritual education with life coaching within the areas of economic development, social, emotional, mental and physical health for the Indigenous Native American Indian community.

Learn more at: intertribalspirituallodges.org

Stand in For Nebraska

Through direct advocacy featuring education, community-enhancing projects, and policy work, SIFN strives to work, in deep and unyielding collaboration, toward realizing ML King Jr’s unrealized “Beloved Community” vision.

Learn more at: standinfornebraska.org

Great Plains Trails Network

The Great Plains Trails Network is a group of citizens who advocate and support a network of trails in and around Lancaster County, Nebraska, for jogging, biking, walking and horseback riding. 

Learn more at: gptn.org

Nebraska Appleseed

Nebraska Appleseed fights for Justice and Opportunity for all Nebraskans by taking a systemic approach to complex issues—such as poverty, child welfare, affordable health care, and immigration policies.

Learn more at: neappleseed.org

Sadie Dog Fund

Providing veterinary grants for dogs and families in Nebraska who are unable to cover the cost of veterinary treatment to save or improve the life of dogs in need. 

Learn more at: sadiedogfund.org

Wildlife Rescue Team

 Dedicated to raising and rehabilitating Nebraska’s orphaned and injured wildlife for release back into the natural habitats.

Learn more at: wildliferescueteamincne.org

Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society

Promoting agriculture and food systems that build healthy land, people, communities, and quality of life for present and future generations.

Learn more at: sustainablenebraska.org

Prairie Pines

The Prairie Pines Partners mission is to provide leadership to develop Prairie Pines as a site of natural resource conservation for education, research and recreation for all.

Learn more at: prairiepines.org

2022 SEED Recipients

Five of the ten 2022 SEED Recipients were chosen by Community Choice during the Board Election. The remaining five organizations were selected by our staff Harvaid Committee.

KZUM

KZUM is a noncommercial, listener-supported community radio station licensed to Sunrise Communications, a nonprofit organization established solely to operate KZUM. The mission of KZUM is to educate and build community through broadcast media, with diverse and independent voices that enrich the perspectives of our audiences.

Learn more at: https://kzum.org/

Capital Humane Society

Capital Humane Society serves the community by sheltering homeless pets, advocating for animal welfare, and educating the public about responsible pet care.

Learn more at: https://www.capitalhumanesociety.org/

Southern Heights Food Forest

The Southern Heights Food Forest is among the first of its kind in the nation. The 2 acre space in South Lincoln is Nebraska’s first publicly accessible food forest. In addition to the forest guilds, our project includes a full-sized, research-based outdoor classroom for kids of all ages, an extensive pollinator garden, and over 50 community garden plots.

Learn more at: https://southernheightsff.org/

Lincoln Bike Kitchen

​The Lincoln Bike Kitchen is a community-building organization that provides bicycles and related resources to all people. We advocate for utilitarian bicycling as a vital part of a healthy, equitable and sustainable community. We connect cycling to broader environmental and social issues through outreach, and education.

Learn more at: https://www.lincolnbikekitchen.org

Lincoln Literacy

Our mission is to strengthen the community by teaching the English language and a variety of literacy skills to people of all cultures. We will celebrate 50 years of doing so in 2022. Along with the English language, we offer job skills training to help members of our community including hundreds of refugees and immigrants, to learn and secure living wage work.

Learn more at: www.lincolnliteracy.org

Art Bus LNK

The mission of Art Bus LNK focuses on providing a free opportunity for youth to create & heal through art.

Learn more at: www.artbuslnk.org

Asian Community & Cultural Center

The Asian Community & Cultural Center supports and empowers all refugees and immigrants through programs and services and advances the sharing of Asian culture and other cultural heritages of our clients with the community at large.

Learn more at: https://www.lincolnasiancenter.org/

Friendship Home of Lincoln

Friendship Home’s mission exists to support, shelter and advocate for victims of domestic violence and their children. Friendship Home helps victims of domestic violence find physical and emotional safety. Offering possibilities to help change their lives when things are at their worst – to be hope they can feel. They provide a continuum of safe, confidential shelter options—from emergency shelter through transitional shelter. Additionally, Friendship Home delivers a rich array of crisis intervention services, case management and emotional support to those we shelter as well as those who are waiting for shelter; helping them to rebuild their lives, free from fear.

Learn more at: www.FriendshipHome.org

Community Crops

To provide education, advocacy, and experiences to grow local food.

Learn more at: https://communitycrops.org/

Food Co-op Initiative

FCI aims to increase the number, success, and sustainability of new food cooperatives delivering access to healthy food in diverse communities across this country. It provides information, training, and technical assistance, as well as seed capital, and engages in research, to blaze, maintain and improve the development path for new food coops.

Learn more at: www.fci.coop

2021 SEED Recipients

Open Harvest owners were invited to select five of the ten 2021 SEED
Recipients. The remaining five organizations were selected by our staff Harvaid Committee.

Since March 2020, the SEED Program raised over $12,000+ for local non-profits.

We Can Do This

We Can Do This is a community organization whose mission is to provide weekend meal service to kids at the F Street Recreation Center. We Can Do This is fiscally supported by Mystic Rhoads Productions, an organization that works to provide positive educational opportunities, healthy lifestyles and an appreciation of the natural environment to the communities it serves. 

Learn more at: We Can Do This Facebook page or mysticrhoads.org

Matt Talbot Kitchen & Outreach

Matt Talbot Kitchen & Outreach aims to defeat hunger and homelessness. 

Annually Matt Talbot provides more than 100,000 meals to Lincoln’s working poor and homeless.  Food pantries are also available for those who do not have enough food at home.

Matt Talbot provides beyond basic needs to embolden people to have hope.

Learn more at: mtko.org

The Bay

The Bay provides a set of empowering communities that provide tangible resources for young adults such as a space to be, immediate help, access to services, job-training and mentoring.

Simply put, young people need three things: somewhere to be, something to do, and someone to look out for them.

Learn more at: thebay.org

Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center

Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center seeks to engage people in the site’s natural and cultural resources by focusing on conservation of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem and the birds that rely on it.

The 850-acre tallgrass prairie sanctuary offers over three miles of walking trails, native prairie grasslands, wetlands and ponds, wildflowers and grasses, and beautiful scenic vistas.
Learn more at: springcreek.audubon.org

Great Plains Trails Network

The Great Plains Trails Network is a group of citizens who advocate and support a network of trails in and around Lancaster County, Nebraska, for jogging, biking, walking and horseback riding. The network seeks the acquisition, development and wide availability of trails.

Learn more at: gptn.org

Montessori School for Young Children

Montessori School for Young Children promotes and encourages the intellectual, social and physical development of children through education according to the Montessori method: a thoughtfully prepared learning environment, where a child will be eager to learn and is able to initiate the learning process.

Learn more at: montessorilincoln.org

Lincoln Food Fort

Lincoln Food Fort is a non-profit dedicated to serving children in under resourced neighborhoods by providing more than just a meal. We seek to provide respect, love, relationships, and a constant support system in their lives. Feeding, loving and growing our future.

Learn more at: lincolnfoodfort.com

Sunday Farmers Market at College View

Sunday Farmers Market at College View is committed to sustainably produced food for food security and a strong, healthy community. Providing access to high quality, fresh food produced with integrity by local family farmers and producers, bringing value to the social, environmental, and economic fabric of our community.

Learn more at: sundayfarmersmarket.org

Malone Center

Malone Center aims to create unity and prosperity throughout Lincoln while honoring our African American heritage.

Malone started as a community center in the midst of the civil rights era as a platform for creating racial and socioeconomic equality. 

Learn more at: malonecenter.org

Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society

Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society recognizes that there is a strong relationship between a healthy local agriculture and a strong local food system.

Promotes agriculture and food systems that build healthy land, people, communities and quality of life, for present and future generations.

Learn more at: sustainablenebraska.org

2025 SEED nominations closed September 30, 2024. Our SEED recipient preferences are given to local non-profits, sustainable agriculture and environmental programs. Our SEED program does not support partisan or religious organizations. Check back in August 2025 for 2026 nominations to open!