BOUNTIFUL HARVEST

BY TERRY DATE

tdate@eagletribune.com

LAWRENCE — Folding metal chairs scraped the floor as the 30 men, women and children sat at long tables lining the church hall on South Broadway one recent summer morning.

They chatted, sipped coffee from small white styrofoam cups and ate donuts that a volunteer bought.

Hunger and need brought them here, where they would soon walk away with fresh produce — bright yellow squash, zucchini and carrots — courtesy of area farmers and Neighbors in Need volunteers.

Among those awaiting the pantry’s opening was Frank Phillips, 77, a cheery-faced man with a stubble beard who is deaf in his right ear from years hearing the continuous “K-chunk” sound from a cutting machine he worked next to in a shoe box factory.

He’s retired and doesn’t get much of a pension and his my wife, who works, is bringing home much less money now after losing her job with the school department.

Does he like receiving farm fresh food from the pantry?

“It’s not that I like it, I need it,” he said.

Phillips and the other recipients here are the end of an assembly line of care that started with seeds planted in bare fields in May.

See FARMS, Page 3 Go online for more photos

Residents and volunteers pick up fresh produce, donated by the Pleasant Valley Gardens farm in Methuen, at an elder pantry at Valebrook hosted by Neighbors in Need.

AMANDA SABGA/Staff photos

Mika Mabe picks up fresh produce donated by the Pleasant Valley Gardens farm in Methuen.