If last week’s rain and this week’s sun kicks your home vegetable garden into overdrive, fear not. The United Way of Northern New Jersey has established ways for you to donate the extras to local food pantries and soup kitchens.
You can donate homegrown produce to the following sites in Montclair and Glen Ridge:
- First Seventh-Day Adventist Church of Montclair Pantry & Soup Kitchen, 15 Elmwood Avenue, Sundays 10 a.m. to noon, in the church basement
- Human Needs Food Pantry, 9 Label Street, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8:30 to10 a.m.
- The Salvation Army, 13 Trinity Place, Monday through Wednesday, 9 a.m. to noon (use side entrance adjacent to parking lot)
- Toni’s Kitchen, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 73 South Fullerton Avenue, Thursday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1p.m. and Sundays from 4 to 6 p.m.
- A Lot to Grow Community Garden at Montclair Inn, 27 Hillside Avenue, Mondays and Wednesdays, 9 to11a.m. (For distribution at emergency feeding sites.)
- A Lot to Grow Community Garden on Benson Street, Glen Ridge, Mondays and Wednesdays, 9 to11 a.m. (For distribution at emergency feeding sites.)
If you don’t have a home garden, but want to help families in need to get fresh vegetables you can also make veggie donations at the Montclair Farmers’ Market. Just buy whatever vegetables you’d like from the farmers at the Saturday market and then put them in the bin by the market manager’s table. United Way has also renewed its partnership with farmers at the market to donate unsold produce at the close of market day. In the first eight weeks of the market, four farmers and customers have donated nearly 1,000 pounds of vegetables to The Salvation Army, Toni’s Kitchen, and First Seventh-Day Adventist Church of Montclair Pantry. Volunteers from the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Montclair pick up and transport the donations to pantries and soup kitchens.
