Anyone with a green thumb, a bit of time and a desire to help an organization feed the city's most vulnerable residents is invited to sign up to help prepare and plant Trinity Community Table's community garden next month.
High school students who need to top up their community volunteer hours are also invited to sign up for two to four hours a week on a project that helps supply the group's free lunch program with healthy, locally-grown vegetables.
Past chair of the program, Bonny Jenson, says the church group will start preparing their plots the week of May 13 at the rare Charitable Research Reserve's Springbank Farm at 681 Blair Road, North Dumfries.
Planting will start the May 24 weekend and harvesting will start to happen in early summer.
Volunteers are also needed on Trinity's lunch prep team. The volunteers clean, organize and refrigerate vegetables in bins for the cooks at Trinity Anglican Church in Galt.
Jenson says the group's lunch program is still experiencing significant increases this year as affordability and inflation takes a toll on a growing number of Cambridge residents.
Trinity Community Table serves up to 175 guests every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at the parish hall and has been doing it for 32 years.
Guests choose what they would like to eat from a number of hot food options.
They also offer takeout, bagged lunches that include sandwiches, meat or peanut butter, fruit, goodie bags,water, fruit salad, green salad and easy-to-carry snacks like hard boiled eggs.
Leftovers are often shared with The Bridges shelter.
Recent stats from the organization show how much interest in the program has increased over the last year.
In January, the number of meals served jumped a whopping 90 per cent year over year. In February, that number rose 138 per cent and in March it was 52 per cent more than in the same month in 2023.
Jenson said family budgets are stressed by the affordability crisis and seniors are increasingly relying on Trinity for lunch.
Conestoga students are also using the program in record numbers.
"The garden allows us to serve nutritious food to those who are hungry," Jenson says. "We have not turned anyone away."
In 2023 the organization served 29,000 nourishing meals; which included the 550 pounds of fresh produce harvested from the garden.
Anyone interested in helping out is invited to email trinitycambridge@ diohuron.org.
