Church plants seeds of support

Vegetable plants are flourishing in the St. John of the Cross garden. The produce will be given to local food banks and the St. Vincent DePaul soup kitchen in Waterbury. (Marjorie Needham photo)

By JULIA A. ALBINI

St. John of The Cross Church parish members Peggy Gibbons and Noreen Corsi initiated a new ministry in May 2014, a garden club that contributes weekly donations of fresh produce to local food banks, including St. Vincent DePaul in Waterbury. Volunteers grow tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, peppers and Russian kale for the ministry in a garden at the Parish House, where they follow the club’s “weed, water, pick” method of maintaining the garden.

Gibbons said, “When the church bought the house, there was an old, fenced-in garden in the back yard so it gave us the idea to weed it and make something out of it that could help others.”

The club had a rough start in 2014 with only three or four volunteers, but this year, with the help of new volunteers experienced in the art of gardening, the club has a full schedule of helpers to weed, water and pick throughout the season. They hope to continue developing a larger group every year. “Our lives are so blessed that we don’t know hunger, and we don’t know need. But there is hunger, and there is need, and it’s right next door,” Gibbons said.

One garden beneficiary, Waterbury’s St. Vincent DePaul soup kitchen, prepares nearly 400 meals a day seven days a week for the homeless. Produce for those meals can be expensive. Soup Kitchen Manager Paul Scampolino said, “With a surplus of vegetables we can blanch and freeze some, then as we need them, take them out. We won’t waste it.”

Deacon Paul Iadarola, executive director of the St. Vincent DePaul Mission, said the mission’s pantry gives away more than 200 bags of donated groceries each week. “The garden club is a great example for other suburban churches to pick up on the same idea and expand,” he said.