Over the Labor Day weekend, a group of volunteers from the Webb House of Jefferson Iowa spent part of the weekend helping fight hunger in Central Iowa. The group volunteered at the Iowa Gardening for Good site and picked more than 3,000 lbs of garden produce. All of this produce is donated to food pantries in Iowa, including the Greene County Christian Action Resource Center (ARC) in Jefferson.
Tracy Blackmer runs the garden project that involves more than 1,000 volunteers and donated more than 180,000 lbs in 2018 to Iowa food pantries.
“We are always looking for help, but group from the Webb house responded to our call for action due to a lot of produce becoming ready to pick and lower than average volunteer sign up over the holiday weekend,” Blackmer said.
This was not the first time the group came to help as they came last year and worked through a wet day of harvesting. Blackmer continued, “For me personally, I am especially impressed when we get students of this age choosing to spend some of their holiday weekend to serve. I can’t remember doing such things when I was that age and think it is great when I see programs led by individuals like Jim North of the Webb House helping facilitate the development our youth into citizens that help serve their community and those in need.”
The group picked a lot of cucumbers, cantaloupe and watermelon that added up to over 3,000 lbs. The total amount would have been larger, but Patton (the dog) kept stealing cucumbers as they picked them and ate many of them. A dog that weighs 130 lbs can eat a lot of cucumbers.
According to Jim North, the cucumbers would have been lost if they weren’t picked that day.
