January 18, 2023

"Old Man Winter" joined us at the Calvary Episcopal Food Pantry last Saturday. Hardy volunteers equipped with hand-warmers, hot coffee, and cocoa, carefully stepped across the dusting of snow to open up the pantry. Seventy four neighbors braved the elements to shop, converse, and sample Chef Martha's spaghetti squash. For a morning with the weather a bit dicey, our neighbors represented 242 individuals and we welcomed four new families.

The Lord's Acre of Fletcher Quilt was hung this week in the gathering room. Diana Walgreen took a vision and created an amazing piece of art. We are most appreciative of St. James Episcopal Church's Thrift Store who made a generous donation to purchase food for the pantry. Nancy and Becky of The First Congregational United Church of Hendersonville delivered 375.5 pounds of food on Saturday. Chef Martha prepared a tasty dish of spaghetti squash to sample. A recipe and food items were available in the pantry.

This week City Bakery donated loaves of bread. Other donated items were from Bright Farms-lettuce, Bimbos-bread, Ingles-meal food bags, Wal-Mart-misc items, Flavor-First-tomatoes and peppers, and MilCo-milk. Friday, our volunteers stocked the shelves with purchased items from MANNA, Sav-Mor (canned goods, milk, and eggs). Manna provided for free, fresh produce-cauliflower, potatoes, onions, squash, zucchini, apples, and eggplant.

On behalf of the executive committee, thank you to our volunteers and our area churches, civic groups, local merchants, and families for all you do to feed our community helping to reduce food insecurity.

Kathy Noyes

Be Outside! Be Happy!

A recent Washington Post article did a deep dive on the Bureau of Labor Statistics Time Use Survey. (Oh, you haven’t read the survey?) It noted that workers experiencing the greatest sense of well-being and happiness were in agriculture, forestry, and logging, industries where the work happens outside. The writers “ran the numbers again, this time for the location of each activity. We found that while your workplace looms as the single most stressful place in the universe, the great outdoors ranks in the top three for both happiness and meaning — only your place of worship consistently rates higher.”

I would add anecdotal evidence that workers in the Lord’s Acre Garden are a pretty happy bunch. Why? Yes, it’s outside. And because they enjoy being with each other. And they appreciate that they are doing God’s work. It’s meaningful!

So, consider spending more time outside this year, specifically in the Lord’s Acre garden behind Calvary Episcopal Church. No skills needed, only the willingness to put your hands in the soil. You’ll likely be happy you did.

Doug Kearney

It will be March in the garden before you know it

LAF gardeners can lie low another six weeks or so. Beginning in March, we’ll take a couple of weeks to prepare beds, followed by planting of spring vegetables in mid to late March. Seeds are here and transplants are on order. We are also waiting on a grant approval to announce what we hope is a large expansion in what we can do in the Lord’s Acre. It will be an exciting year! We hope you can be part of it.

New LAF Quilt

Thanks to Diana Walgreen who made a quilt of the Lord’s Acre garden, now brightening the pantry gathering room. Diana attends Calvary and is clearly a very talented quilter.

? Saturday Workdays ?

In cooler and shorter days, our work sessions have begun at 4pm on Thursdays (6:30pm in summer). We are aware that working folks may not be able to do that. So, we’re considering adding some Saturday mornings as a work session in the garden. That coincides with pantry distribution, so we’re looking for interested folks who do NOT work in the pantry on Saturdays. Please let Doug Kearney know at wdkearney@gmail.com if Saturday mornings (beginning in March) might make working in the garden possible for you.

God is entirely and

personally present

in the wilderness,

in the garden,

in the field.

- Martin Luther