Poor feeding the poor - food pantry donations

 My family dedicates two thirds of a large vegetable garden to our home and one third for the 

Freeport Food Pantry. 

Despite low family income, we share garden spaces, time, and physical energy. Seeds are purchased on sale, and/or Friends donate leftover seeds, coupons to purchase seeds and deliver extra plants (that six pack of peppers is always one or two too many).

 The garden provides plants every year as well. We can count on many tomato seedlings, parsley, Russian kale, and an abundance of sunflowers. Parsley and kale usually come up in the same place, but the tomato and sunflowers are all over the garden. If the seedlings are gently lifted in the cup of your hand, they can be resituated. 

We try to use only organic seeds and the gardens are nourished with local ingredients, including our yard leaves, grass clippings and semiannual layers of Casco Bay seaweed hauled from up the street.  All year round we toss kitchen vegetable scraps over the garden. Somehow this magical mix produces an overabundance of organic vegetables. 

Our first donation is usually RHUBARB, we always have extra, delivering a banana box a week throughout early Spring. Harvest takes less than 15 minutes – slice stems, wipe off any dirt, pack in boxes. Sturdy boxes can be picked up at the food pantry and reused throughout the season.

The next harvest starts in early July. MIXED GREENS, ROMAINE, RED LEAF LETTUCE, BEET GREENS usually make regular appearances. These greens, along with our first KALE and SWISS CHARD, are delivered every week throughout July and August. Trimming beets and chard produces more crop, so why not share with the bounty! Harvest is simple. We dedicate a quarter hour every Wednesday morning to trimming greens and packing in banana boxes. Produce is delivered on way to errands and/or work.

GREEN BEANS arrive early August, as well as PARSLEY, DILL, SAGE, AND BASIL. We donate ¼ of every green bean harvest. Herbs are delivered fresh, with instructions on how to dry in low oven. FLOWER bouquets are delivered every week throughout the summer months as well.  End of September we bring in the PUMPKIN and SQUASHES (one year we delivered 68 round orange pumpkins!), along with CARROTS, CELERY, PARSNIPS AND BEETS. 

The food pantry welcomes local fresh fruits and vegetables. Could you sow an extra row or two of carrots, make room for a half dozen more green bean plants, add a line of zinnia and cosmos behind the herbs, plant a few more basil and parsley seedlings? It is easy to slightly increase your garden and harvest fresh food for your neighbors.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Messaging about food insecurity and hunger - Q and A

Graduate students at the University of Southern Maine sent out a survey to food security advocates to determine what people think about the messaging around food insecurity and hunger. These are my answers, what do you think and what are your answers? 1. What is your current job title? Food Security Advocate – self-employed, working with a $15,000 grant funded by several Quaker entities. Grant project: SNAP ReBoot - giving persons in poverty a voice, especially those on SNAP. Interviewing participants, creating a composite paper and bringing the stories to the legislature 2. Where were you born and raised? Hartford, Connecticut. Raised in Windsor, Connecticut. (And because you can make all kinds of assumptions about this information)… raised by Catholic parents, with 7 siblings. Father (8 th grade education) a truck driver and Mom raised children while earning two college degrees, a graduate degree and when her last three children were in high school, she taught at We
Read more
Image
What is it like to expect to re enter your professional career and be second choice, over and over and over again?   What is it like to share a house with a friend for a decade without contributing to the mortgage, taxes, house repairs? What is it like to watch your retirement savings be eaten by groceries? What is it like to lose your sense of purpose and sense of self? Middle Income Poverty is living among middle income family, friends, colleagues, strangers, with a below poverty income. It is struggling to succeed raising a daughter on ten thousand dollars a year (from the court ordered child support), with occasional bits of additional income. It is wrassling the courage to ask for help. It is slugging through two major depressions and several hospitalizations while fighting stress related diseases.  It is being denied a return to the once successful career. Back in 2004, I left behind my City Planner position. After fifteen years in the land use use planning profession in Ma
Read more

Greens haul to food pantry

Image
I bring who I am to my present condition. I live with a below poverty income while continuing to express my values. I believe in giving back and contributing to those who have less, using my gardening talent and knowledge. Neighbors and friends donate seeds every spring. Gene offers a giant garden space, complete with marine clay, lots of sunshine, and somehow no deer. I turn soil, dig, weed. Gene turns soil, digs, mulches. The russian kale and spinach and parsley regenerate every season. The harvest is weekly, plentiful and has granted me the nickname, "kale lady" at our local food pantry. I am reminded that hard work and dedication to greens brings great satisfaction to myself and others who can not afford to buy fresh produce. I am proud of my food pantry hauls.
Read more