Grow A Row: It’s Alive – Kingston East News, July 2010
“Loving Spoonful: With lots of sunshine and hot weather over the last few weeks, vegetable growing season is well underway” – CKWS Television, July 2010
“Loving Spoonful invites residents to share their backyard harvest with those in need“- EMC, May 2010
“Residents Grow a Row to help others” – Kingston This Week, May 27, 2010
Posted May 6, 2010
BY KRISTEN COUGHLAR
EMC Lifestyle – Loving Spoonful is planting the seed in the minds of local residents to plant a little extra in their backyard garden or balcony planters this harvest season.
Between June and October volunteers of the Loving Spoonful will be collecting fresh produce at the Partners in Mission Food Bank and Kingston Public Market as part of its 2010 Grow a Row campaign.
The campaign solicits local green thumbs to register their garden and pledge to grow a row, pot or plant to donate, or to drop off extra produce to a designated drop-off site for the purposes of being distributed to the Partners in Mission Food Bank and various hot meal programs in the area.
“Last year Kingston was one of the few cities across the country to participate and Loving Spoonful volunteers picked up almost 3,000 pounds of fresh food,” said Kingston Grow a Row committee member Marilyn Kennedy.
Kennedy said the campaign, which is a national initiative of the Canadian Association of Food Banks, the Composting Council of Canada and the Garden Writers Association of America, was developed out of a need to generate more food for hot meal programs and local food banks as well as increase the nutritional value of the food being provided to the area’s less fortunate.
“We know in our community that there’s been this increased demand for the services of the food bank and hot meal programs,” Kennedy said. To meet that need this year’s campaign is hoping to collect 4,000 pounds of fruit and vegetables.
Kennedy said she is hoping to see the entire community come together to support the Grow a Row campaign, whether they have a vegetable garden in their backyard or a tomato plant on their apartment balcony. She said that in her book there are no small contributions, every little bit helps.
“Whether it’s a pot of herbs, an indoor tomato plant or some peppersit’s all fantastic,” she said. “It’s like that saying, ‘it’s hard to come up with a million dollars but there’s a million ways to make a buck.”
Rooted vegetables of the greatest need are potatoes, carrots and onions. Other produce such as broccoli, cabbage, beans, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, sweet peppers, winter squash, apples, pears and melons are also greatly appreciated.
For those who don’t have a green thumb, Kennedy said there is the opportunity to volunteer to pick up/drop off donated food to hot meal programs and the local food bank.
“There are lots of opportunities for our community to be involved in really concrete ways,” she said.
Kennedy noted that so far a host of celebrity gardeners like Mayor Harvey Rosen, Blues singer Georgette Fry and author Helen Humphreys have hopped on board to support the campaign, and that local businesses have come on board to lend a helping hand. Kennedy hopes to see an increase in community support as word of the campaign spreads.
To register your garden to be part of the Grow a Row campaign email growarow@lovingspoonful.org or call Susan at (613) 583-2055. Those interested in volunteering to assist with the campaign are invited to contact Sayyida at sayyida@lovingspoonful.org.
The Grow a Row committee will host its campaign kickoff featuring a potluck, music and information about the campaign May 13 at 6 p.m. at the Kingston Unitarian Fellowship at 214 Concession St.
Beginning in June community members are invited to drop off harvested produce at the Loving Spoonful Table at the Kingston Public Market on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. or at the Partners in Mission Food Bank at 140 Hickson Ave.
