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Making
a Difference Sharing the Harvest: |
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Why does the Co-op have the Harvest Partners garden? Since the Co-op has food on the shelves to sell, why grow it to give away? The answer is simple: the garden grows more than vegetables. It is also a learning lab for gardening skills, an appreciation of nature, and a sense of community. One of this year’s volunteers explains her experience this way:
"One of the unique opportunities that the Harvest Garden provides is the chance to learn in an apprentice-type atmosphere. Before this, I had very little experience with vegetable gardening. I have especially enjoyed working alongside the volunteers from Kendal-at-Hanover, some of whom have been gardening for more than twice as many years as I have been alive, and who are always very willing to share ‘tricks of the trade’ with me. "Finally, it has been very satisfying to harvest the vegetables, knowing that the work and care from my hands helped to produce all of this healthy food that will find its way to local food pantries and community dinners. When I was a child, my family benefited from similar programs. It is very pleasing to me to find that I am now able to participate on the providing end of this cycle of sharing." More than 25 volunteers from age 6 to 83 have come to the Harvest Partners garden. Together, they have contributed 275 hours and harvested 250 pounds of food to date. On a recent delivery day, a Harvest Partners volunteer brought 48 pounds of garden vegetables —including tomatoes, carrots, yellow squash, and 17 pounds of string beans — to the LISTEN Community Food Shelf in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Was that too many string beans, she wondered? "I’ll take anything that is fresh," says Leona Ryder, LISTEN’s Food Programs Coordinator. "When we have fresh vegetables for the Community Dinners, I double the quantity. People come back for seconds, and I want to have leftovers for them to take home, too. Nothing goes to waste." Thanks to all of the volunteers who tend the garden,
and to these community members for their donation of materials and
services: |
"The
nature of my work keeps me tied up inside alone and staring at a
computer screen most of the time. Getting out in the garden is a
very welcome break from all of that abstraction. It is wonderful
to spend some of my time each week doing physical work. It gives
me a sense of connection — with the Earth, and with other people
from across a wider base of the community than my day-to-day activities
generally allow. Jump to this month's
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