Gardeners harvest record numbers for the hungry
The tomatoes came in late. The season was sprinkled with excessive heat as well as unseasonably cold weather. And rain was either in abundance or nowhere to be found.
In the end, though, gardeners came through for Plant a Row for the Hungry.
This year's campaign in five suburban counties gathered 41,286 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables for participating food pantries.
Congratulations! Not only did you exceed the goal we set for the campaign - 40,000 pounds - you kept the supply of food steady through Oct. 1, when the drive ended.
The success stories are in abundance. We checked in with some of the volunteers we wrote about through the summer to see how their projects fared.
Family grows memories
Kimmy and Mike Spangler, ages 7 and 4, got quite involved in gardening this summer - especially delivering the vegetables to Warren Township's food pantry.
"They fight over who can bring what in," their mom, Cheryl, said. "If we have a zucchini and a bag of green beans, someone has to be carrying something in. If we have one zucchini they both have to hold it."
Spangler wanted her kids to learn about sharing and generosity. They seemed to grasp the notion quite well.
"They're so enthusiastic," she said. "It's a tradition now."
75 pounds of fun
It was their first experience with gardening, and the girls in Cadet Troop 1320 weren't sure what to expect.
The effort turned out so well this year, the girls might even expand next summer. The troop planted, grew and harvested 75 pounds of cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchinis and peppers in the Hoffman Estates community garden.
"They loved it," co-leader Laura Bianchi said. "Harvesting, of course, is just the best, watering is a close second and weeding is down at the bottom - right with bugs and the worms."
The troop from Carl Sandburg Junior High School in Rolling Meadows delivered Plant a Row vegetables to the Palatine Township food pantry.
"They had a real connection from beginning to end," Bianchi said. "It was just a great experience."
More fun than mud
When we last wrote about Buffalo Grove Cub Scout Pack 79, the boys had discovered the pleasure of mixing water with dirt and making mud.
It was especially fun for them to yank weeds out of the ground with just the right flick of the wrist to send mud flying through the air.
In the end, though, the boys discovered what every gardener likes best - the harvesting.
"They enjoyed the picking part," Pack mom Sandy Marek said.
All totaled, the group produced about 90 pounds of food.
"We had lots of lettuce, lots of bell peppers and lots and lots of chili peppers," Marek said.
Adults even let the youngsters have a taste of their effort: they went with some of the short carrots they grew.
"They had fun looking at these strange, stubby looking carrots," Marek said.
Couldn't contain bounty
When friends at Congregational Church of Batavia suggested going to New York to help in the wake of the terrorist attacks, Diane Felt hopped on the phone and called the American Red Cross.
She learned they had a waiting list of volunteers more than 60,000 people long.
That reinforced to her the importance of the plastic bins lined up outside the church housing vegetables destined for Plant a Row.
Needs exist everywhere, not just in New York, and all efforts directed at the community's less fortunate members are important, she said.
"Remember, there are still needs around here," Felt told her friends.
More than 50 people and 100 children worked on the church's container gardens this summer. Faced with no good spot on the church's grounds to plant a garden - where there was dirt, there was no sun and vice versa - volunteers lined up storage bins along the sidewalk, filled them with dirt and set to gardening.
So far, their bins have produced 45 pounds of fresh food for the Batavia Food Pantry.
The project visibly demonstrated how families can work together on a community outreach project, co-organizer Felt said, and "that we're able to really make a difference in someone's life."
Spreading the word
Larry Grabowski's garden produced more than 350 pounds of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, chard and peppers.
He even harvested an apple tree owned by a relative - one who has the tree but doesn't eat the apples.
But that wasn't his biggest accomplishment this year. He got about 35 food pantries signed on to Plant a Row for the Hungry in Chicago, and laid the groundwork for expansion next year.
The LaGrange man thinks all gardeners should do their part to help food pantries provide fresh, nutritious items.
In addition to his organizing work, Grabowski late this summer spoke to Cook County Master Gardeners about the program and enlisted their help in making it an even bigger success next year.
Making use of leftovers
Nearly 2,000 pounds of vegetables would have gone to waste this summer if not for Keller's Farm Stand in Naperville and some residents from the nearby Ashbury subdivision.
Whenever the Keller's crew found they had leftover produce at the end of the day they'd call in the Ashbury volunteers, who drove over, boxed it all up, then delivered it to Naperville's Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry.
Julie Daly, who started the subdivision's Plant a Row effort last year, said she's willing to keep shuttling fresh food for pantry clients as long as Keller's continues its donations.
"The need is there," she said.
Loaves and Fishes is the primary food assistance provider in Naperville and some weeks this year distributed more than 1,000 pounds of vegetables.
Daily watering pays off
The 8-year-old boys in Arlington Heights Den One, Cub Scout Pack 119, ran into some complicated watering duties during this summer's hot days.
Parents drove them to their Plant a Row garden plot in the village's community garden every day to water it when rain was nowhere in sight.
Their persistence paid off with a harvest of around 425 pounds
"We've been picking tomatoes and peppers up until now. We may have one more mini-harvest left," said Rich Kaczkowski of Arlington Heights, one of the den leaders.
They donated the produce to the Wheeling Township Office.