By Stephen Appezzato
RED BANK – Are you an avid gardener left with a surplus of crops each season? Your vegetable garden can now become a source of charitable goodness through Lunch Break’s Project Citizen Gardener program.
The initiative is a new campaign to recruit local gardeners to donate fresh produce to Lunch Break’s food pantry.
With rising grocery costs, it is no surprise many in the community have difficulty affording fresh produce. The staff at Lunch Break, a vital charitable organization serving Monmouth County, has witnessed this first-hand, serving an increasing number of clients at its food pantry.
“Our average daily number of clients coming through last year was 52. We’re now averaging 93 shoppers a day,” said Lunch Break pantry manager Beth Sherrard.
“Commensurate with the increase in our number of guests, the prices of produce are just going out of this world,” she said.
In recent years, the organization adopted a nutrition policy that emphasizes the importance of fresh produce in a balanced diet. To meet this need, Lunch Break spends donation money on produce from a local food purveyor.
“It’s a lot. I mean, I’m going through about 560 cases of produce a month,” Sherrard said.
To help offset this weekly cost, Glenn Farm in Rumson, owned by longtime Lunch Break supporter Steve Glenn, has donated produce to Lunch Break for years. The garden is operated by professional gardener Gabrielle Tanella.
Since 2016 Tanella and her employees at Full Sun Projects have produced “tens of thousands” of pounds of fresh produce at the site, donating it all to Lunch break.
With help from Rutgers Master Gardeners – volunteers who assist the university’s Agricultural Experiment Station, Glenn Farm became a major source for Lunch Break’s pantry.
Bonnie Featherstone-Johnson, a former Lunch Break board member and supporter for many years, was one of the Master Gardeners who helped Tanella plant the seeds for Citizen Gardener.
“We would always be talking about food, Tanella said. “Because she’s a long-time supporter of Lunch Break as well as a former board member and volunteer, we would discuss the food and I had increasingly been noticing how in demand the fresh food was at the food bank,” Tanella recounted.
“I’m thinking to myself, I’m one garden, and it’s clearly still not enough. We’re cranking out so many thousands of pounds of food a year and it’s still not enough ” Tanella said.
While the two were harvesting produce one day, Featherstone-Johnson thought, “Why don’t we ask local municipalities and community gardens to grow some produce for the common good?”
And Project Citizen Gardener (PCG) was born.
Hobbyists, farmers and anyone with a produce garden can donate washed crops to Lunch Break, which will help the organization serve a greater need for nutritious pantry items.
“We’re trying to raise awareness that, even if you have a garden and you’re a home gardener, you could easily grow food for Lunch Break, and not only Lunch Break but any food pantry or food bank,” Tanella said.
In January, Tanella and Featherstone-Johnson began an outreach campaign to promote Citizen Gardener. The gardeners met with borough officials from across Monmouth County and are working to incorporate plots from community gardens into PCG’s donation base.
In addition to Glenn Farm, Tanella said she and her team will soon manage the gardens at the Church of St. Anselm in Tinton Falls, a new donation garden that will contribute to Lunch Break. Produce from there will supplement the organization’s kitchen as well as its pantry.
While the initiative is in its early stages, Lunch Break will host an open house on Project Citizen Gardener April 10 to share more information with growers, including preferred crops, donation drop-off times and procedures.
“If we can help lower the costs for Lunch Break and contribute to their bottom line, if we can get passionate home gardeners to contribute to us, it’s a win-win,” said Featherstone-Johnson.
The article originally appeared in the March 21 –March 27, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
