From People's Garden To People's Fridge

HARWICH – The health department is expanding its food production and access program for residents.

Last year the department opened the People’s Fridge, a program where food is made available to needy residents in a refrigerator located at the community center. The food is purchased through various grants and donations made to the program. 

Improvements to the People’s Garden that was begun last year will be an additional source of food this year.

“It was more successful than we anticipated,” Health Department Director Carrie Schoener said of the People’s Fridge program. “It was good to get the food out into the community, but it’s also a reminder that the need is there.”

Over the past year the fridge has been stocked with prepared meals, vegetables, fish and fruit. Schoener said there are people who access the offerings regularly and some from time to time when needed. When kids in the recreation program are hungry they have access to the food. The refrigerator is in a good location within the community center, between the council on aging and recreation departments, she said.

“It’s definitely getting varied use from a lot of different age ranges,” said Schoener. 

The fridge has been stocked through a number of different sources, including donations from the Barnstable County Food Access Program, a $2,500 donation from Shaw’s supermarkets, fish from the Chatham Harvesters Cooperative, and every Monday and Thursday 20 prepared meals are purchased from the Family Table Collaborative and placed in the refrigerator.

Schoener said funds for the prepared meals have come through the Harwich Chamber of Commerce’s decorated Christmas tree fundraiser, where local businesses decorate trees that are sold to the highest bidders. The chamber split the profits from this year’s tree sale between the People’s Fridge and The Family Pantry. 

There are growing plans this year to add to the food supply. Schoener said a trial run to grow vegetables began last summer, but it got started a little late and there was not a lot of production. There are much bigger plans this year.

Last year the Cape Cod Five provided a grant to purchase wooden garden beds and garden soil. Garden facilities are in place at the Cultural Center Municipal Building at 204 Sisson. There are also a couple of plots for the People’s Garden program at the Community Gardens operated by the conservation department further down Sisson Road. The plan is to grow a lot of fresh vegetables for the Fridge this summer.

“Our goals in creating this program are to help educate the community to grow your own food, build community resiliency, and engagement while providing fresh, free produce to the community,” said Schoener.     

 The health department is looking for volunteers to assist with the gardening operation. Schoener said she would love to have any residents interested in gardening, at any experience level, to lend a hand. She said volunteers are needed seven days a week. Anyone interested in volunteering should contact the health department.

“If any gardeners have an overflow of harvest they don’t want to waste, we’d be happy at the health department to accept it to supply the fridge,” she added.  

The People’s Garden has already received a big helping hand from the Harwich Elementary School Garden Club. Over the winter, students planted seeds and nurtured seedlings for the garden plots. On Thursday the students and garden club director Liz Hoff brought the seedlings to 204 Sisson for planting in the wooden beds and four additional smaller beds on site. With seedlings in hand, the People’s Garden will be growing tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, radishes, carrots, potatoes, okra and herbs and spices, according to Schoener.

A search has begun for grants to help to purchase a greenhouse to be attached to the cultural center to grow produce for the fridge on a year-round basis, which Schoener hopes can be in place within a year.

She is grateful to all the departments in town that have helped establish and expand the programs, specifically the commitment to the program made by Conservation Administrator Amy Usowski. The People’s Garden is now registered with the United States Department of Agriculture, she added.