Margaret Gifford makes her rounds on a recent Wednesday evening near closing time at the Carrboro Farmers' Market. With a cardboard box in hand, she reminds farmers that she's there to collect any produce they can't sell and won't keep until the next market day.

"We're collecting as always," Gifford tells Hailey Moses, who works for Cane Creek Farm.

"I have some stuff for you," Moses says, and hands yellow squash and zucchini to Gifford.

To donate food, Margaret Gifford is always collecting donations at Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings at the Carrboro Farmers' Market. For information about the market's hours and location, go to www.carrborofarmersmarket.com

The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service in Chapel Hill always needs volunteers and donations of cash, food, toiletries, box fans, blankets, diapers, etc. To donate or for a complete list of needed items, call 929-6380 or go to www.ifcweb.org

At another stall, Bill Brown of Fernrock Farm promises to give Gifford a few bouquets of daisies and phlox. "I could sell it but I'd be glad to give it to you," he says.

For more than two months, Gifford, a 44-year-old stay-at-home mom, has been collecting food from farmers to distribute to the hungry. To date, she has delivered more than 4,500 pounds of food to the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service in Chapel Hill, the Food Bank of Durham and Durham's Urban Ministries Center.

The idea came to Gifford, a market regular and former public relations executive, when she heard farmer Ken Dawson of Maple Spring Gardens talking about composting unsold tomatoes. "I noticed farmers taking some unbelievable produce home," she says. "We need to get the food from the people who have the food to the people who need the food."

The farmers all express sentiments similar to John Soehner's, who along with his wife, Cindy, owns Eco Farm: "I'd like to give it to somebody who can use it."

Gifford also wants her presence to send a message to shoppers. "I want people who shop here to have this on their mind: that's there hunger in this community," she says.

Gifford is a regular sight at the market on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings. She can be found near the gazebo with a line of boxes waiting to be filled. Her 3-year-old daughter, Sophie, plays nearby. Her husband, John Whitehead, joins her on occasion, organizing the filled boxes into the back of their Subaru Outback.

UNC volunteers help

Her one-woman effort, which she now calls the Carrboro Farmers' Market Farmer Foodshare, aims to be a year-round effort. The UNC-Chapel Hill student group, Fair Local Organic, has started sending volunteers on Saturdays to help with distribution when the volume is more than Gifford's one vehicle can handle.

On that recent Wednesday night as the farmers start breaking down their stations, the collection begins. John Ferguson of Ferguson Farm donates two large boxes of ripe peaches, which were just selling for $4 to $7 a basket. Alex Hitt of Peregrine Farm brings over a box of tomatoes worth more than $60. Basil comes from Cane Creek Farm. Cucumbers come from Turtle Run farm. Elise Margoles of Elysian Fields Farm drops off a grocery bag filled with eggplant.

"Thanks for taking care of this," Leah Cook of Wild Hare Farm tells Gifford. "It's so nice that someone will take it from here."

What shouldn't go unnoticed is that Triangle shoppers pay a premium for these same fruits and vegetables. These farmers' produce also graces the plates at such fine restaurants as Lantern, Magnolia Grill and Fearrington House.

The majority of farmers at the Carrboro market, the state's oldest farmer-run market, grow organic food and use sustainable farming methods. This is the very food that Alice Waters, the slow-food guru and owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, so desperately wants to see growing in public school yards, served as part of the National School Lunch Program and made available to those most in need. That's happening here.

Farmers at the Durham Farmers' Market, another bastion of organic, sustainable produce, have been donating food to Urban Ministries for at least six years. The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle collects food twice a day from the wholesalers and retail farmers at the State Farmers Market in Raleigh.