Stories from Pantry Volunteers

This past year my husband and I volunteered at the garden with Chris, for the North County Food Pantry. We have always worked in a large garden at home but have almost gone crazy with the isolation imposed by COVID restrictions in the past couple of years. This community garden has become a great place for us to spend time and get to know our neighbors this past year. When we started, the Pantry obviously needed help, so Pete and I made it a priority to help get it weeded, planted and going. Then we made it a goal to spend maybe 2-3 mornings there each week there. Well, one thing led to another and, item after item came on for harvest and we were excited with each new thing. Asparagus, Raspberries, strawberries and then everything else kept popping up. We met with friends to weed, harvest wash and weigh for the Pantry, bringing in amazing poundage and beautiful produce. Things continued on till we harvested the last big old 119 lb pumpkin. This lively group of volunteers put the fun back into tending a garden for us. What a beautiful mix of people from our community, it has been a privilege to get to know them.
The one story I most wanted to tell about is about how we were inspired to do potato gleaning for the Pantry. I wrote two articles about this with pictures in our garden blog at these links;

The first explains what inspired us to go and do some gleaning to help out the Pantry.

The second shows what it was like to glean some potatoes, corn and onions.