Healthy eating in the ‘Burg

Published 7:30 am Thursday, April 12, 2018

EDWARDSBURG — The Edwardsburg Community Garden is a joint venture between Edwardsburg Food Pantry & Seventh Day Adventist Church. 

The term community garden has many different definitions.  The Edwardsburg Community Garden is a 120×120 foot garden provided by Seventh Day Adventist Church to provide food from Edwardsburg Volunteers for those in need. It has 15 volunteers that provide one to two hours a week, working together as a group.

Anyone who would like to be part of this group should contact EFP.  The goal of the garden organizers is to provide fresh produce that is locally grown with minimal influence of insecticides and fertilizer. 

Many other members of the community also contribute to the garden. For instance, many Edwardsburg  citizens that share their great produce to EFP and with the increased refrigeration capacity donated by the Gibson family in honor of Linda Gibson,  food from the garden can now be refrigerated and thus extend the freshness of produce received. 

Last year, garden organizers started an Eating Healthy in the Burg campaign, which has been expanded to this year.  Plans for this program include offering healthier choices in food  visitors to EFP and monthly Mobile Pantry through Feed America starting in July at Hope Methodist. This initiative will run for four months.

There will also be cooking demonstrations with healthy choices. This program consists of demonstration with recipe card, vegetable oil, seasoning packet and healthy vegetables provided for those that qualify.   In addition, there will be like to raise their own vegetables for healthy alternatives.

The pantry’s hours are 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the lower level of Our Lady of the Lake Church. However, donations can be received at anytime at the drop-off boxes inside the Social Hall entrance East Side. Additional donation locations are Martin’s Granger Store located at the exit of the main building and Edwardsburg Post Office on the North side of the entrance area.

Monetary donations may be sent to our central office location at Our Lady of the Lake, 24832 US Highway 12, Edwardsburg, MI 49112