According to the Regional Food Bank, many local families in New York's Capital Region are struggling to put food on the table. Pitney Meadows Community Farm in Saratoga Springs is gearing up for its annual Harvest Box Program, hoping to help address those food access challenges.
It’s a wet, gray fall morning on the west side of Saratoga Springs.
Three greenhouses are packed with leafy greens that will be harvested throughout the winter. Otherwise, Pitney Meadows Community Farm is winding down in preparation for the winter.
“Sometimes I say we’re the ones holding the lines on whether or not people will continue to eat rutabaga and celeriac or not,” joked Stephen Lewis.
Farm Director Stephen Lewis said they grew 50,000 pounds of produce last year, with about 20,000 pounds going to their Food for All program.
It manifests in a few ways, including partnering with a dozen food pantries in Saratoga County.
The farm also runs clinical and residential focused “food as medicine” programs – Assistant Farm Director Daniel Williams explains.
“And then our Food as Medicine program partners with the community health center here in town, and a number of low-income housing residential sites like RISE and the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority, and provides those folks with both the food and the education that they need to take ownership over their own health to improve chronic diet-related diseases through getting good food and getting the support necessary to incorporate that into a whole plan for improving their health,” said Williams.
Farm Executive Director Brooke McConnell says beyond just feeding their neighbors, the farm also aims to remind locals how their produce gets to their dining room tables.
“Our goal here at Pitney is not to become the largest farm in the county or in Saratoga. We really are a model of what farming is across the county. The Pitneys held this in conservation in perpetuity, so that people driving down West Ave see a working farm, they see tractors, they see farmers, they can walk up close on our trails, and it and it doesn't get lost in our collective memory,” said McConnell.
The farm’s mission is to grow food, community and connection. Program and operations manager Cass Skarka says those three pillars are vital to the farm’s success.
“You know, you can't just grow food in the way that we're doing it if we're not trying to also grow our connection to each other, to the land, and find a way forward altogether that we're nourished with good local food,” said Skarka.
Packed away in one of the farm’s barns, Kelly Holzworth is filling Ziploc bags with kale.
It’s a bit of a preview of this weekend’s Harvest Box packing party where dozens of volunteers will fill two hundred boxes with carrots, winter squashes, potatoes, onions, turnips and more.
But, Williams says, each box purchased turns into a box donated.
“It’s an opportunity to take our fall vegetables, our storage crop, and distribute them out to the community, but allow the people who are purchasing the vegetables to have the opportunity to donate an equivalent box. So, when they buy a box that same purchase allows us to send another exact replica out to some of our community partners,” said Williams.
He says it’s a manifestation of the farm's mission statement.
“As the whole idea was to take all of what we're doing and kind of condense it down into this like one little program. This idea of ‘let's take the food that we're growing and make sure that it is shared.’ It's our one farm feeding everyone that we can and engaging everyone that we can in that work,” said Williams.
According to the Regional Food Bank, 1 in 11 people in Saratoga County are food insecure. In Fulton and Montgomery counties, that figure jumps to 1 in 7.
Williams says right now, at a time when federal funding for food assistance programs has been cut — leaving many in the Capital Region unable to access fresh produce — this program is even more vital.
“Every month we're seeing more people. Every year we're seeing more people. The demand just keeps growing. Like people need produce, and the thing that they're asking for the most. So, this is what always strikes me: is people are coming to the food pantry and asking for fresh produce. It's the number one most requested item,”
