The December newsletter from the Shelbourne Community Kitchen also included this update: “If you can believe it, our Garden Programs set a new harvest record at the Shelbourne Community Kitchen. In 2022, our garden teams grew and harvested a whopping 8,300 lbs of fresh produce in support of our programs! Wow!
There are so many benefits to growing our own produce at the Shelbourne Community Kitchen. It enables us to offer the freshest produce we can and helps to reduce our carbon footprint as an organization while creating opportunities to learn and share in the process of gardening together. Given the high cost of food, we also wanted to demonstrate the incredible impact that our Garden Programs have on our annual food budget.
Our staff and mighty administration team did some extra calculations this year, cross-referencing our detailed harvest records with fair market value for organic produce in B.C.-and yes we grow organically! If we were to purchase the variety and quality of produce our Garden Programs generated in 2022, it would have cost $43,000! Holy Macaroni!
We want to send a giant thank you to Jim and Catherine Gowans of Omnivore Acres Farm, and to St. Luke’s Anglican Church for generously donating the use of their land for our programs. Your contributions to our work make our Garden Programs possible.
We also want to take this moment to celebrate the tremendous leadership of our volunteer Garden Leads, Bruce Saunders and Katie Bodin, for guiding us through a wonderfully successful growing season, and to all of our hardworking and dedicated volunteers who put so much love into the gardens.”