Healthy choice for food pantry to take root

Any day now, the earth will be broken on an experiment in Avon Township to provide healthy food for those in need.

Twenty-eight plots also will be available for individual gardeners to sow in the field behind the township building on Washington Street in Round Lake Park.

From a casual conversation last fall, the expertise of several resources has come together to design a "production garden" to provide crops specifically for the township food pantry, as well as the individual plots.

Those 10-foot by 20-foot patches cost $35 but will be discounted to $20 if owners allow extra produce to be culled for the pantry, which has seen a substantial jump in activity compared with last year to more than 2,200 users a month.

Potatoes, green and red peppers, zucchini, and eggplant are on the initial crop list. Three rows, 100-feet long by 3-feet wide are designated as food pantry crop areas.

"They'll be able to get organic produce," explained Wendy Warden, president of the Avon Township Community Foundation, which is coordinating the operation.

"The food that's available to you (at the pantry) is much higher in caloric content but much lower in nutritional content. If we can, in a cost-effective way, supplement with high nutritional food, we want to do this."

Warden said community gardening also can be a social outlet and deepen neighborhood connections.

The idea grew from a casual conversation at the food pantry between Township Supervisor Sam Yingling and Roland Kuhl, pastor of the North Suburban Mennonite Church in Libertyville, who has been pursuing healthier choices for food pantries.

The township offered the use of the land and experts, like James Reaves of the University of Illinois Extension, who tested the soil, became advisers.

A horticulture class at the College of Lake County designed the garden space. Staff of the Prairie Crossing Learning Farm provided agricultural know how, staked the area and provided seedlings. Volunteers stripped the turf and will till the plots.

"It was one of those magical things that happened," Warden said. Coordinating the effort has led to a late start but the heartier crops will grow.

"We'll still have a harvest," Warden said.

Tools will be available for gardeners to use at the site and the foundation will provide educational information and workshops.

Tests showed no chemicals or pesticides in the soil, meaning the crop can be considered organic, though it has not gone through the five-year process to become certified as such, she added.

As of Friday, 11 individual plots had been reserved, most from those who couldn't get into CLC's community garden, which has a waiting list.

Call Warden at (847) 401-1135 for information.

One of the rules of the garden is no chemicals can be used.

"You can't use (herbicide) to kill weeds," she said. "You're going to have to pull them."