Grow An Extra Row

In the spring a committee of 5, Bruce Zimmerman, Open-Line Garden Show, CKTB, Betty-Lou Souter, CEO, Community Care, Mike Anderson, City of St. Catharines, Recreation & Community Services Dept., Debbie Wiebe, St. Catharines Standard and Donna van Weenen, President, Garden City Horticultural Society initiated the

‘Grow an Extra Row’ Programme. With the approval of St. Catharines City Council, August 28, 1999 was designated ‘Community Harvest Day’. The objective of this programme was to promote through radio and print, that anyone with extra fruit and vegetables from their gardens--we all plant and harvest too much--donate them to the local food bank or bring them to Montebello Park on August 28th so that they could be distributed to those in need. Anyone who was in need of fresh fruit and produce could come down to Montebello Park between the hours of 7:00am & 2:00 pm to pick up the fresh produce. Enbridge Consumer’s Gas donated the hot dog & pop lunch for anyone who came down. For those who donated fresh fruit and vegetables from their garden, or in the case of the few that went to the local Zehrs Food Plus and bought fresh produce, they were given a Botanix Guide 7th Edition courtesy of Broadway Gardens in St. Catharines. They also received the bookmark ‘Give Back to Grow’ courtesy of the Scotts Fertilizer Company. Over100 families benefited from the harvest of others. You could tell by the smiles on their faces,  how grateful they were. The highlight of the day was a bright eyed young man, Erik, who at the ripe old age of 4, demonstrated a strong social conscience. Just that morning he dug two baskets of potatoes from his garden to share with others. Erik had planted these potatoes from the Becker’s Seed Potato prize giveaway that his grandmother had won on the Open-Line Garden Show. The name of the potato he grew was ‘Erik’.

This is just one of five banners the the city of St. Catharines puts up for us for the month of August in 2003.

 

Our first ‘Community Harvest Day’ was such a success that we plan  to make the ‘Grow an Extra Row’ programme grow even larger next year.

If you would like more information about starting your own ‘Grow an Extra Row’ in your community, please write to Bruce Zimmerman, Open-Line Garden Show, CKTB, 12 Yates St. St. Catharines, ON. L2R 6X7 or phone 905-684-1176 ext.727 and leave a voice message