Our mission is to help those in need through a volunteer effort of planting, picking, and delivering fresh produce, via a unique model that: heightens awareness of socio-economic issues, highlights the importance of local farms, and inspires volunteers across many generations and skill sets.

Description:
What we do and how we do it:
• We provide food for the hungry by growing and gleaning fresh produce from farms and supermarkets.
• We donate healthy food to food pantries, soup kitchens, and food banks.
• We support local farms by driving traffic to their farmstands through invitations to volunteer on their property.
• We educate about farmland preservation through our website and marketing efforts in support of local farms. Through these efforts, we serve as advocates for local farmers.
• We raise awareness about hunger and poverty and teach children about children and poverty through presentations at churches, schools, and various groups.
• We significantly reduce waste by gleaning on farms (produce that would normally be plowed under) and supermarkets (produce that is "not quite retail perfect" that would normally be thrown away.
• We provide lots of volunteer opportunities for people of all ages and abilities - from three-year olds to seventy-year olds, including volunteers with disabilities.
• We give families, co-workers, and friends an opportunity to work side-by-side to help people in need.

History:
This program started in 2004 with a small plot and a single volunteer (Chip Paillex). After seeing a plea from the Flemington Food Pantry requesting any gardeners donate excess produce, he cultivated his own garden and donated about $3,000 worth of produce that year.
(add photo of Chip at food bank titled Star Ledger)
But Chip wanted to include more people and donate more produce.
That is when Chip decided to call upon Jeremy and Meredith Compton, owners of Peaceful Valley Orchards. Without hesitation, they offered to: give a quarter of an acre, help to prep the land, and donate any starter plants and seed to help get going. That farm, combined with land at Express Lane Farms donated by the Etter family, represented the beginning of America’s Grow-a-Row. Add photo DSC_0045 Gary and Jackie putting corn into bag)

After that, families from Chip’s church, Bethlehem Presbyterian, signed up to “own” the garden for a week at a time. They would be responsible for watering, weeding, as well as harvesting and delivering any produce directly to the Flemington Food Pantry. This incredibly coordinated volunteer effort would continue all season long. In addition, we were given the opportunity to glean the Compton’s fields of corn. Multiple times a week groups of 20-30 people would get together to pick bins full of corn (often as much as 1,000 pounds at time!). Meanwhile, the farm at the Etter property grew in size and generated a few thousand pounds of produce, as well.

By the end of the 2005 season, the group as a whole netted about (14,000) pounds of produce that was delivered to NORWESCASP, the Flemington Food Pantry, the Somerset Food Pantry as well as some other smaller food pantries. We had also engaged many of the younger members of the congregation through their families’ participation or through organized youth group activities. Further, we found that many community members were asking to be a part of the project and our volunteer network grew, ironically, in proportion to the increase in production.

After the season, thanks to quite a bit of press in several NJ papers, we received bags of free vegetable seeds. We had so many that our Explorers Youth Group (2nd – 5th graders) developed a plan to send out (75) packets that the kids wrote hand letters and notes asking other churches to participate in such a program across the state and country. One of those churches (Immaculate Conception in Annandale, NJ) started their own very successful garden.

The year 2006 brought an amazing surge in popularity for America’s Grow-a-Row, thanks to our expanded volunteer network and a number of articles written about the program. This, combined with regular invitations to “glean” excess product at the Compton’s farm resulted in a stunning 27,000 pounds of fresh produce donated to the local food pantries and food banks mentioned earlier, as well as other needy recipients as far as Elizabeth and Newark. It was this year that showed the America’s Grow-a-Row leadership how much could be done if we could expand our donation network.

The next year, 2007, was even more stunning. Thanks to the efforts of over 450 dedicated volunteers, Grow-a-Row donated 110,000 pounds of fresh, healthy produce to feed the hungry. It was a phenomenal year and we hope to double our output in 2008. The combination of obesity increasing, housing crises, and living expenses increasing steadily the need is rapidly growing and the importance of the work that we do is becoming more crucial to decreasing hunger.
(add photos 100_2961 kids with melons, DSC_0163 produce with caption “Photo by Paul Wesley”, dsc_10 field of corn, and photo of group with corn labeled “Group Shot”)

Our big dreams include: forming our own non-profit entity, acquiring land, and paying staff to lead America’s Grow-a-Row. We’d love to expand the program to other states with other “host farms” like Peaceful Valley Orchards. And, we would love to build a hands-on, interactive Poverty Education Center to teach everyone about poverty and hunger in a way that is both impactful AND fun and that shows how we can all jump in to help solve the problem.

Contact people:

Colleen Duerr, Vice President, (phone), (email) Chip Paillex, President, (phone), (email) Jackie Etter, Secretary, (email)

Address:

150 Pittstown Road Pittstown, NJ 08867 (See a map)

Directions:

Directions to Peaceful Valley Orchards and the Grow-a-Row Farm From North: Take I 78 to Exit 15, go left at bottom of exit ramp (Rt. 513). Continue on Rt. 513/Pittstown Road for 1.8 miles. Peaceful Valley Orchards is on your right. From. . . (more)