Brookline Community Foundation Provides Produce for Brookline Families in Need

For the fifth year in a row, the garden at the Brookline Community Foundation (BCF) supplied fresh produce to the Brookline Emergency Food Pantry.  

Over the summer the Food Pantry was able to receive 270 items of produce which included: beans, peas, carrots, cucumbers, kale, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, shallots and leeks. 

By the end of the growing season later this fall, the garden will produce about 500 pounds of produce from its 14 raised beds with 320 square feet of growing space.  The garden is being taken cared of with the help of a grant that was given this year to the JP Green House to manage the garden and provide educational programs for the community. 

“The Brookline Community Foundation is proud to be a partner in this work to meet the needs of hungry families in our town,” said BCF Executive Director Jenny Amory.

As noted in BCF’s 2013 Understanding Brookline report, “between 2009 and 2012, the number of visits to the Brookline Emergency Food Pantry increased by 87% - from 2,650 to 4,900.  The Food Pantry serves over 500 families and individuals…up from 250 just a few years ago.”  

According to Rene Feuerman, director of the Brookline Emergency Food Pantry, “in recent years there’s been a big push for more produce for our clients.”

BCF is also committed to ensuring that children have access to the garden to learn about locally grown food and the reality that some Brookline families are food insecure.   

“As the director of nature camps for the Town of Brookline,” Stephanie Springer, of the Brookline Recreation Department said, “I loved watching the kids from our "Sprouts" program plant, weed and harvest crops. What a great hands-on educational experience and so meaningful since the produce is then given to the Brookline Food Pantry.”