Lakes Park Community Gardeners grow, donate food

For many years, Bill Johnson has led the Community Garden at Lakes Park in an effort to grow, harvest, collect and donate food for the Community Cooperative soup kitchen in Fort Myers. During the growing season (typically, October through April) Bill and the rest of the “A-Team” of volunteer gardeners meet in the gardens every two weeks to gather what’s available and take it to the soup kitchen. Most, if not all of the produce is grown in the Community Garden. Two beds in the Community Garden plus the ABC bed in the Children’s Garden are dedicated to this purpose. Gardeners and other donors also bring canned and boxed goods to add to the harvest.

Want to help?

YOU can help the Community Garden to grow and donate food.  Pick whichever one works for you:

DONATE to help REBUILD THE RAISED BEDS in the Community Garden

Many of our beds have seen better days. Our volunteers are the best, keeping up with repairs and shoring things up when necessary, but this is Florida and wood will last only so long. We’re campaigning for designated funds to help replace the beds on an ongoing basis.

CONTRIBUTE FOOD ITEMS on harvest days

Canned or boxed goods can be contributed at the next harvest – February 25th, 2020.  Meet the volunteers at the Community Garden BEFORE 10:00 AM with your food contributions

 

VOLUNTEERS in action!

Here is Bill’s message and some photos from the harvest of February 11th, 2020:

What a wonderful donation we had on Feb. 11, 2020. The “A” Team harvested and collected can goods, vegetable oil and dried foods to the tune of 303 lbs. This gives us a total of 1,216 lbs. through our 7th donation for the 2020 growing season. Lakes Parks next donation is scheduled for Feb. 25, 2020.

Thank you “A” Team members Dorothea, Jim, Doc and Ed for harvesting the fresh produce for this amazing donation.

I would also like to thank the following bed numbers for their kind donations of can goods, vegetable oil and fresh produce (1, 8, 13, 14, 18, 21, 23, 28, 29, 32, 38, 39, 45, 48, 56, 57, 61, 62, 68, 69, 75 and Kathy Busick and the Children`s Garden).

Thanks
Bill