Sowing The Seeds of Generosity
It began with donuts, a donation from TILL on the Go in Maynard to the drive-through food pantry at Open Table across the street. TILL Site Coordinator Emma Riffelmacher bought “way too many” for a Veteran’s Day breakfast they hosted last year at the Theatre Creamery and donated the extras to Open Table. This year, Emma mentioned the food pantry to TILL Farms Manager Katelyn Sheridan, who gathered peppers, eggplant, tomatoes and herbs to donate. Some ingredients at Open Table go into prepared frozen meals but this donation went to families for their own cooking.
This was the beginning of a beautiful and bountiful relationship whereby surplus produce that individuals pick in the morning is delivered to Open Table in the afternoon.
“Once TILL came to the realization that Open Table distributes fresh produce as part of our work to alleviate food insecurity, it just clicked,” recalled the pantry’s Joan Geoghegan. “They saw an opportunity to share their bounty with us to enable our distribution of fresh produce every week to our clients.”
In a time when cutbacks to federal programs make food insecurity a challenge for a growing number of families, Katelyn says “having access to fresh and affordable produce is crucial,” and is “proud that TILL on the Go can have a hand in directly impacting their community.”
This isn’t the first time TILL on the Go has given back to the community. Gordon Soparkar, an individual served by TILL on the Go, inspired visits to a Lexington nursing home where his mother lives. Visits then expanded to a Lancaster rehabilitation center, where individuals deliver baked goods to rehab residents, often using produce from TILL Farms.
Visits to the nursing homes and donations to Open Table have made TILL a source of generosity as well as a recipient. Yet before Emma brought over that first batch of vegetables, Joan at Open Table knew very little about their neighbors and had no idea that TILL operated a farm. “The produce deliveries put TILL on the radar for us,” she said.
Emma and her team at TILL on the Go plan to stay there. “They’re really a special group of people working over there,” she said of their neighbors at Open Table, and “they’ve been really happy about the donations.”