Garden will provide fresh veggies this year

Staff and volunteers are helping cultivate the 70-foot-by-125-foot plot just half a block away from the pantry.

Eagle’s Wings clients and volunteers will tend the garden, which already boasts collard, cabbage and bell pepper plants and soon will feature corn, bean, onion and radish plants.

“We’re going to need people that want to weed,” said Sally Love, executive director of Eagle’s Wings.

Boy Scouts are going to build a fence “so we can keep the critters out,” Love added.

Staff hadn’t solved the problem of irrigating the plot, but were working toward that solution, Love related.

“Our mission is to eliminate hunger in Beaufort County,” said Sonny Browne, president of Eagle’s Wings’ board of directors and rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Chocowinity.

“Our historic way of doing that (mission) has been to operate a successful food pantry for over 20 years now,” Browne continued. “We are doing that well and have begun to look at other ways that we can continue to eliminate hunger in Beaufort County.”

The garden is one component of that goal, he said.

Another facet of the gardening program is to teach people how to grow food for themselves on whatever plot they have available, Browne related.

Space for the 16-row garden was donated for Eagle’s Wings’ use by local businessman Bill Litchfield.

Litchfield said he was glad to let the pantry use the space as long as necessary.

“Any organization as wonderful as that deserves to have as many gifts as they can have,” he said. “It certainly was a pleasure for me to give to them and let them use it, and I hope they will continue to use it.”

Besides the new garden, Eagle’s Wings has launched a number of changes its leaders said will help improve service to clients.

The staff expanded the pantry’s hours to 5:30 p.m. until 7 p.m. Tuesdays.

Daytime hours for clients’ food pickup still are from 9 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. and from 2 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays.

The pantry is closed every fifth Tuesday.

Love said staff also is looking into recruiting volunteers to deliver food to homebound people.

“We know there’s a lot of folks out there,” she said.

Volunteers are working on converting the pantry’s warehouse to a “client’s choice” facility, meaning clients will be able to walk through and pick out the food they want.

“It eliminates waste for us,” Love observed. “It’s good for the clients and it’s good for us as well.”

Posted on the warehouse wall will be a revised food pyramid listing healthy things to eat. The pyramid is published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We’re working to better serve clients so they can make their own food choices and get food that they will use and can make use of,” Browne said.

Eagle’s Wings is moving toward partnering with agencies in Bath, Aurora and Belhaven to better serve eastern areas of the county, he concluded.

For more information, call Eagle’s Wings at 252-975-1138 or visit www.eagles-wings.org.