Potting Party Benefits Food Pantries

Earlier this month Victory Garden volunteers potted leftover vegetable starts to give to Newtown’s food pantry clients to grow on their own. Social Services Nunnawauk Meadows residents also received plants. Participants included garden founder Harvey Pessin, his wife and Master Gardener Brid Craddock, and Parks and Recreation Department Director Amy Mangold. Also helping with the plants were Susan and Wayne Stokes and Dorothy Dwyer.

Mr Pessin said, “You know the old proverb…give a man a fish?” People can put a pot outside the door and grow their own vegetables, he explained. The proverb indicates “If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime.” Clients expect to receive food at the food pantry, but to take a plant home “is an extra bonus,” he said.

Potted plants went out in three-gallon buckets and are sufficient for the plant’s entire growing season. “It’s our biggest hit,” Mr Pessin said. “We used whatever was left over after garden was planted; I grew extra and Planter’s Choice had extra and we had close to 200 plants.

“Clients like it,” he said.