It is spring again.
No winter lasts forever. At Project Hospitality, we have welcomed the new season by clearing space on our food pantry shelves for the generous bounty donated by local farms in our warmer months.
This is the fresh food that brings life, hope and nourishment to the hungry on Staten Island.
The vibrant greens and tender fruit are healing medicine for thousands of our neighbors, who without the pantry would be feeding their families out of a can, a box or a package.
We at Project Hospitality are blessed by the crops that grow in the sweet soil of Staten Island, the sun that nourishes the earth, the rain that saturates the roots of the plants, and, mostly, by the human hands that pick the yield and bring it from the fields to share.
“There is no possible way to describe in a few words the great things that happen when we receive fresh, local grown produce from area farms and gardens,” said Trazy Richter, Director of Project Hospitality’s Food and Nutrition Programs. “When we can tell our clients from where exactly the produce came – these tomatoes were grown in Snug Harbor, this lettuce is grown at a local Moravian church, these potatoes were tilled in southern Jersey just for you – all of a sudden, it tastes better and takes on a much more meaningful experience for everyone.”
Asian star melons, spaghetti squash, frilly escarole, heirloom tomatoes: Last year, during the rich growing season, Project Hospitality received thousands of pounds of produce donated by borough farms and civic groups and community and backyard gardens.
As spring has again unfurled her promise of hope and renewal after a bitter winter in this city, we are able to fulfill the sacred responsibility of sharing food straight from our earth.
In our country of plenty, all of us should be able to enjoy this kind of life-sustaining nutrition.
But the poor have less access to good food.
Hunger in our part of the world, ironically, often takes the form of obesity caused by cheap over-processed foods. Hunger is felt as diabetes, heart disease and disability.
Hailey understands the daily pain of malnutrition. The 43-year-old single mother has been obese since she was a child.
Now she suffers from diabetes and poor mobility, which caused her to lose her job as a home health aide. Hailey vowed to eat healthier — for herself and her three children, and comes to Project Hospitality’s food pantry for fresh vegetables and healthy grains, and information about how to cook the produce donated by local farmers.
“I just love this stuff,” she said recently, as she picked squash off the shelf of Project Hospitality’s Food Pantry at the Community Service Center in Stapleton. “My kids too. Once I got them into eating good food, they don’t want to go back. I’m so thankful.”
Project Hospitality is also thankful for the crops grown on this Island with its long history as farmland, and the good souls who tend this earth and share their bounty with Project Hospitality – and, in so doing, feed their hungry neighbors.
With fresh food in the belly, the path to self-sufficiency is ever clearer.
It is spring; let us begin together.