July 26, 2023
911-911...No it's not that kind of emergency. Our goal is to distribute food weekly to aid in reducing food insecurity in our community. However, recently we have experienced some challenges of our own. Our 15 grocery carts are used throughout the week to collect donations in the foyer and to transport food items to the shelves. An average of 110 neighbors are shopping with them on Saturday mornings. The carts are sturdy, but the wheels have given out on 1/3 of the carts. The good news is Dan, with a little on-line research, was able to purchase "kits to repair the wheels." Nothing like having a AAA volunteer, called the SCR Man (Shopping Cart Repairman). Another recent challenge is the realization that our garden has doubled in size since last year. Thanks to your compost donations, soil amendment, and soaking rain, the harvest is bountiful and we are so grateful. Our regular harvesting volunteers have remained committed but we need additional ones to help several days a week to harvest the produce as it ripens. By Tuesday this week, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, and over 2,000 green beans had been hand-picked and will be distributed this Saturday. Please contact Doug Kearney at wdkearney@gmail.com to volunteer and be added to the list of days and times of harvesting.
This past Saturday, we welcomed 125 families representing 451 individuals and seven new families. Our neighbors look forward to the time they spend with the volunteers on Saturday. The neighbor/volunteer shopping model offers weekly connections.
Another highlight from last week — on Friday, several volunteers from the Lion's Club of Mills River helped with getting the produce on the shelves for Saturday distribution. Heather Neal surprised us on Friday with a shopping cart filled to the brim with personal care products all donated through a grant from Thrivent. Thrivent shares a commitment to giving back to the community through time, money or resources to a community partner. Thrivent Action Teams began in 2014 to provide their clients with funding tools and resources to make it easier to support programs important to them.
City Bakery donated loaves of freshly baked bread. Other donated items were Flavor-First-tomatoes & peppers, Ingles-bread, Bimbos-snacks and bread, Panera- bread, Wal-Mart and Big Lots-misc items and food, Project Dignity-feminine products, Humane Society-dog/cat food and MilkCo-milk. Fletcher Methodist, Calvary Episcopal, Nativity Lutheran, Tabernacle of Praise Churches and other anonymous donors contributed their time, food, and misc. items during the week.
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. We thank you and appreciate your food and monetary donations. — Kathy Noyes
News from The Lord’s Acre, Fletcher
GATHER THURSDAY AT 6:30PM TO PICK AND WEED
The summer camp groups that visited The Lord's Acre this summer are gone. Camp season is almost over. They were a big help in holding back the encroaching weeds. But now it's up to our regular and faithful garden crew. So, please join us. We're picking eleven varieties of vegetables these days. Come help us share the bounty.
If you haven't noticed, it's hot, even at 6:30 in the evening. There will be water in a drink cooler for folks who need it, which is everybody.
COMPOST UPDATE
Check out the Lord’s Acre compost bins in the photo below, with tarps pulled back to see the inner workings of decomposition and the birth of earthy goodness.
The pile on the far right is fully cooked compost, ready for use. The bin next to it is cooling down and will need a few months to cure. We are not adding new contributions to this pile. (Thus, the caution tape.) The third bin from the road is new. It's got leaves, fresh garden weeds, and spent grains (thanks Whistle Hop Brewery!). It will soon reach temperatures of 140 degrees to speed decomposition and kill pathogens. Fun fact: the heat is a byproduct of the chemical reactions that accompany microorganisms "eating" organic matter. This third bin is where you should bring your kitchen scraps to contribute to the making of rich compost. Just lift the tarp, toss in the scraps and replace the tarp. Consult the sign on the back of the shed to determine what should go in the compost.
HANDPICKED BEANS ARE BETTER
YouTube videos can be a time-suck for sure. Nevertheless, I like to look at videos of large farm equipment, even though there is a lot I don't like about industrial agriculture.
There is a place for efficiency and large-scale farms. But the most high-tech machine in The Lord's Acre is a little Honda cultivator that weighs about twenty pounds. It's great for turning "green manure" crops into the top two inches of soil.
The cultivator notwithstanding, we have the privilege in our garden to pick all of our produce by hand. It's a privilege that we don't have to think first about efficiency and profit margins. And it's a privilege to hold in our hand these little miracles that a month or two ago were dried up seeds. In the meantime, millions of tiny creatures in the soil and large ones contributing to compost, along with a complex dance of sun and rain and carbon dioxide and oxygen, the genes directing those energies, and your sweat and toil, all make this bean pod possible.
As I picked beans in the garden beds this morning, along with Tamara, Martha, and Kim, I was hoping that pantry neighbors who take home those beans on Saturday will know that each and every one of the 2,000 beans we will have picked this week was handled, probably more than once, by someone who cares for those neighbors.
I help serve communion sometimes at Lutheran Church of the Nativity. I pour wine from the common cup into the individual cups people bring to the altar rail. It's a privilege. It's the same privilege, really, quite the same privilege, to pick fruits of the earth, carefully and respectfully, and make them available to those who need them. I know they will taste good. I hope they also carry a little of the love and regard that we pickers have, and God has, for everyone who eats them. -- Doug Kearney
