Growing Garden, Growing Need

Old Saybrook - Think “pantry,” and rows of canned and boxed foods come to mind.

Not at Shoreline Soup Kitchens and Pantries' grocery distribution sites. At the pantries in Westbrook, Old Saybrook and Old Lyme, shelvable items such as cereal and peanut butter sit across from an abundance of basil, green beans, broccoli, onions, corn, and on one recent visit, even fresh-cut flowers. The fragrance of fresh basil overpowered the produce table set up in the basement of The First Church of Christ in Saybrook for pantry hours that afternoon.

Volunteers pluck most of the produce right from the group's own vegetable garden, a half-acre of neatly organized rows of greens behind the nearby Grace Episcopal Church on Main Street in Old Saybrook. Farm stands in the area also donate day-old items, such as corn and fruit, and residents drop off produce from their own gardens to supplement the Shoreline Soup Kitchens' own production.

Together, volunteers' efforts last year helped put more than 10,000 pounds of fresh produce on pantry shelves for neighbors in need, Shoreline Soup Kitchens Executive Director Patty Dowling said.

The garden started in 2003 on one-eighth of an acre of land and has expanded each year. This is the biggest production year yet, partly because of the larger demand the nonprofit has seen at both its pantries and soup kitchens during the economic recession, Dowling said.

”More and more people are in need,” she said. “We're providing 30 percent more meals than we were this time last year.”

While a handful of organizations across the state have vegetable gardens that supply fresh produce to pantries, few match the size of Shoreline Soup Kitchens', whose regional scope means the group's endeavors attract volunteers from all 11 towns the group serves.

At the peak of harvest, the garden provides about 500 pounds of fresh produce weekly to each of the three benefiting pantries, Dowling said. The group can give out fresh produce but due to health-department restrictions can't cook it in its meals, Dowling said.

Picking schedules conflict with Clinton's pantry hours on Wednesdays, so a local church garden there supplies that pantry with fresh produce, Dowling said.

Donations essential

The garden would not be where it is today without the donations Shoreline Soup Kitchens has received, Dowling said. They include land, an irrigation system that has cut down the water bill from $2,000 a summer to $200, a shed, seedlings, mulch and even adjacent land that neighbor Bill Marston provided for winter squash plantings.

All the donations mean meals cost only 25 cents apiece to provide, Dowling said. Pantries provide residents with enough supplies to feed every family member for three days, and the group also runs soup kitchens in Centerbrook, Chester, Clinton, Deep River, Essex, Old Lyme, and Old Saybrook.

Carrots and beets at the garden last week poked their heads out of the soil, ready to be picked. Fresh compost that Lyme resident Mark Lenhart prepares in the back of the garden helps the fertile soils produce fat, foot-long zucchinis as well as tomatoes, green peppers, eggplants, yellow squash, green beans, spinach and swiss chard.

For people who pick up groceries at the Shoreline Soup Kitchen pantries, the fresh-picked produce means a nutritious addition to their meals.

That wasn't always the case: Dowling said that when she came to Shoreline Soup Kitchens eight years ago, the group's pantries were giving out canned rather than fresh vegetables.

”There was a real call at the time to sort of say, 'How can we provide more fresh food for the people that were coming (in)?'” Dowling said.

The Connecticut Food Bank estimates there are 280,000 people in the state who are at risk of hunger every year. Because fresh food is more expensive than processed or canned foods, low-income residents often have to decide between volume and nutrition, Dowling said.

”They're going to choose whatever they can get the most of,” Dowling said.

Produce a necessity

The garden started shortly after Dowling arrived at Shoreline Soup Kitchens. Board member Claudia Van Nes, at the time a Hartford Courant reporter, interviewed Dowling for a story and asked her what the group needed the most.

Van Nes expected Dowling to say “money,” but instead, the answer was “produce.”

A member of the Chester Garden Club, Van Nes began hunting for available land to start a garden and found it at Grace Church.

Shoreline Soup Kitchens today has a list of 750 volunteers, with 140 volunteers for the garden, Van Nes said. And that's not even counting the numerous residents who either donate items to the garden or drop off fresh produce of their own to help out.

The garden provides the fresh food pantries so desperately needed, “while taking advantage of, really, a community of gardeners and people who care and people who wanted to do something concrete (for) people in need,” Dowling said.

Chester resident Betty Palka, a certified master gardener, helped start the garden. She keeps detailed records of plant production schedules and tests the soil regularly so that no garden bed ever sits empty and so the garden's soils are always at desirable nutrient and pH levels.

The garden works because of the volunteers' collaborative nature, Palka said. Even her Rat terrier, Cash, helps out - with “pest control,” as Dowling calls it. And this year, Old Saybrook resident Julie Peace organized a new volunteer arm that picks up excess produce from five farm stands in the area.

Cindy Beaumont, of Madison, this past week was helping to drive vegetables over from the garden to the Old Saybrook pantry.

”I was looking for volunteer work for my daughter to do this summer,” Beaumont said. “I thought it was a worthwhile cause to be involved with. … This is something that we could do as a family.”

As a policy, Shoreline Soup Kitchens does not grant interviews with residents who frequent the pantries. But Old Saybrook pantry manager Sarah Noyes said people appreciate the fresh produce.

”It's gone by the end of the day,” Noyes said.