Local Produce Food Drive: 270 Pounds
“Got Extra?,” the Market’s summer fresh produce food drive, collected a total of 270 pounds of beautiful, delicious, and nutritious locally grown fruits and vegetables this year. The food was donated to three area food pantries: Journey Church (South Royalton), Sharon, and Tunbridge.
The Market serves as a drop-off center for donations. Market staffer Elizabeth Ferry sorts the food and coordinates deliveries to the food shelves.
The “Got Extra?” program, announced through posters at the Market, ran on July 27, August 24, and October 4. Donations ranged from lettuce, kale, and chard to tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, green beans, melons, summer and winter squash, corn, leeks, and more!
Food shelves are grateful. Here is a statistic that may surprise you. The Sharon Free Food Shelf is open twice a week. From July through September, 455 people came to the food shelf for help in meeting their food needs. And that’s just one of our three food pantries!
We thank the local growers and gardeners who participated, including: Chap Family Farm, Balla MacCrea, Fern Wood, and Luna Bleu farms; Sue Cain and Wendy Judge, each from Royalton, and Mark from East Randolph.
With help from the community, we’ll do it again next summer.