This summer has been hot and dry, but farms and small gardens continue to produce ample amounts of the best foods on Earth! Tomatoes, squash, corn, peppers, cucumbers, and more brighten our day at The Pantry. Each week The Pantry is so blessed to see fresh produce coming through the doors for our neighbors!
Through the partnerships the Fresh Market has with local CSA growers Green Wagon Farms and Chimney Creek Farms we are able to offer locally grown fruits and vegetables at a greatly reduced price to our community. Our Fresh Market hits the road every Friday to visit two nearby apartment complexes helping greater improve access to the fresh, healthy options our neighbors have shared they need. Quite often, we run low on produce like onions, corn, tomatoes, and melon because people just cannot get enough of them!
Gordon Food Service employees planted a collective garden and have been sharing their abundance with The Pantry this year. Neighbors in the community growing vegetables in raised beds, pots, or small gardens drop off their surplus as well. They know that their harvest will be passed on to others who were not able to grow their own garden this year, or that it will increase the amount of fresh, healthy food eaten by their neighbors.
How does your garden grow? If it grows too many vegetables for you to can, freeze, or eat and you are wondering what on Earth you can do with all of that healthy bounty, please keep your neighbors at The Pantry in mind. We assure you, your bounty will go to a loving home! The smile on people’s faces when they talk about the salads they can make, or talk about how their mom prepared a certain vegetable dish for them when they were a child and how they are going home to make it for their children cannot be replaced.
The Pantry is also considering other ways to facilitate neighbor to neighbor exchanges in the future. If you are interested in a seed exchange or a vegetable swap, please reach out to our Executive Director, Karrie Brown, at karriebrown@thepantry.gr or 616-726-0577. We hope to see a lot of interest and to be able to establish this program or other collaborative garden-based programs in the future.
If you would like to learn more about our Fresh Market program or donate towards a CSA share for our 2019 program year, please contact our Fresh Market coordinator, Heather Armstrong, at heatherarmstrong@thepantry.gr or 616.455.9411 Ext 4.
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