The Plainfield-North Plainfield Rotary Club and the North Plainfield High School Interact Club have four plots at the garden where they grow fresh vegetables for local food pantries, including Star Fish Food Pantry in Plainfield.
The Giving Garden is part of the Wagner Farm Arboretum. They have a large garden area where they rent out plots of various sizes in half of the garden; the other half consists of plots that are 4 X 40 feet each. Volunteers grow vegetables of all types in these plots and then harvest them for area food banks and pantries.
The Rotary club maintains four of these plots. The Interact Club at North Plainfield High School helped us prepare and then plant the plots before they finished the school year. About 15 kids went up to the Garden once a week after school to work for two to three hours.
In addition to working the four plots, two of our Rotary club members pick up harvested vegetables every Thursday and take them to the Star Fish Food Pantry, the Salvation Army, and to several senior citizen housing buildings in Plainfield.
(above) Rotary Club member Vicky Griswold with some of the 37 pounds of carrots she harvested at the Giving Garden in Warren.
