Jay Currle bags zucchini and collard greens for needy families on Monday at Rock Spring UCC.
Photos by Shirley Ruhe/The Connection
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Jay Currle, an incoming freshman at Washington-Liberty High School, is busy packing zucchini, baby eggplants and some greens in paper bags. He says he was looking for something to do this summer to stay occupied. Every Monday beginning in May volunteers bag donated produce. The produce is donated by local gardeners to local faith-based food pantries to provide supplemental groceries for needy families.
Tey Scott is in the kitchen filling large brown paper bags lined up on the counter. He will be a sophomore at W&L in the fall. Scott says, “I’ve done this a lot. I want to help out people.”
Laila Leikvold, just home from a family reunion in Scotland, is the supervising volunteer in charge today standing inside the door to check in the produce as it is dropped off. She records what they receive and weighs the produce. “We rotate the responsibility; it is too much to do every week.” Leikvold chats with Daena Kluegel, another regular volunteer about the surprising diminished supply being dropped off this year. Kuegel comments the need right now is great but Leikvold says, “Last year we received pounds of food but I think this is about half of what we had received last year at this point. I’m guessing it is the drought.”
L.P. Mitchell, who has been donating garden produce for many years, adds that this year’s total will be a fraction of last year because the gardens are more fragile with fewer and less hardy growth. “A warm winter led to a proliferation of wildlife, including animals that typically go after garden crops: rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoon and deer.” He said, “Daily we remove gnawed on and partly eaten vegetables from our gardens. We are finding caging damaged and fencing chewed up and destroyed.” As a result, he says, they simply have far less to give.
Right now there seems to be a supply of tomatoes and peppers, and beans are just starting to come in. Collards are mostly gone.
Leikvold says, “We have stopped using some amount of plastic and are using compostable bags. We used to package the produce for a family of four but now we are able to send more in bulk. Any amount of extra garden produce is welcome.”
Rock Spring UCC is located at 5010 Little Falls Road.