Peak of Vegetable Season

Various succulent vegetables in the window of the Friendship Center on Wednesday, Sept. 18. Below, at the same time, we had bags of lettuce and more available at the Eagle Street Room at First Baptist Church.

The amount of produce we have been giving out at the Friendship Center Food Pantry has increased exponentially in this, our third growing season of operation.

In addition to having bought shares at Caretaker Farm, we receive generous donations from other local farms, including Many Forks Farm and Square Roots Farm. Some of these donations come from what is left over every week from the Williamstown and North Adams Farmers Markets. The local organization Hoosic Harvest helps us do this, particullarly at the NA Farmers Market.

Local activiist Kathy Keeser is a leader of Hoosic Harvest and a real go-getter on her own in gleaning at farms and giving the results to food programs such as ours. Most recently, she made sure we were able to  give out to our friends a fine assortment of locally grown apples.

In this account, I am sure I am leaving some names out, particularly of farms. For instance, I know of one farm from Washington, Mass., which comes to the NA Famers Market and has given us produce, but I can’t remember the name!

The whole idea behind this is to give our friends the opportunity to get their hands on fresh produce, which of course is healthier and can be significantly more expensive than less nutritious foods.

On Wednesday, Sept. 28, we had all types of vegetables available both at the pantry and at our staging and sign-up site in the Eagle Street Room of the First Baptist Church of North Adams down the street.

To help give ideas on how to prepare all this produce, our friend Amanda Chilson of the Mass in Motion program locally headquartered at the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition will be giving a presentation on foods and recipies at the Eagle Street Room during pantry hours on Wednesday, Sept. 25.

Thanks to all who have helped make this explosion of produce happen!

Peace,

Mark

Cynthia Davis did a good job of getting our visiting friends to take vegetables on Sept. 18.