The garden at Bigfork Food Bank has brought joy to patrons young and old in its second year, providing them with fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as a sense of self-sufficiency.
Elisabeth Mollica has volunteered at the food bank since 2016. She was asked by former Bigfork Food Bank Director Kathy Kaestner last year to explore the possibility of a garden at the pantry. It started small, with containers purchased at Sliters.
But this year, the corner of the food bank building was an explosion of green. Mollica planted flowers, three potato varieties, three pots of cherry tomatoes, pole beans, carrots, beets, two blueberry containers, four pepper plants, bunching onions, one watermelon, lots of herbs and six full-size tomato plants.
They’ve given away 35 pounds of food from the garden this year. Whether it’s potatoes, tomatoes or a handful of fresh herbs — Mollica said it feels good to see patrons light up when they realize they can get garden-grown vegetables.
“It sounds so exaggerated, but I just feel like I’ve given them just a piece of gold, because I see the expression on their faces. And some people just don’t have access,” Mollica said.
Mollica has participated in the Master Gardener program for 22 years. She’s started gardens at foster homes, a weekly after-school gardening program in Georgia and assists regularly with the garden at Bigfork Schools.
The Master Gardener program is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture and stewarded locally by the Montana State University Flathead County Extension Office.
Gardeners involved are certified through local universities and work to provide educational opportunities and assist community members with their gardening needs. The program is entirely volunteer, with participants submitting their hours to the corresponding university. Participants must complete 20 volunteer hours of service per year to keep their certification active.
The idea to create a container garden at the Bigfork Food Bank was made a reality when Mollica reached out to McKenzie Dey, agriculture, natural resource and community development agent with the Extension Office. She agreed to make the garden a Master Gardener project, so Mollica could report her hours to MSU.
Dey said her job involves a lot of requests for help in gardens big and small, and asking for help from the Master Gardener program is a great way to send assistance to places she can’t get to.
“They extend that horticultural help. I get a lot of calls to help in school gardens or community gardens, and I do what I can, but that’s where I send those opportunities to my Master Gardeners. I say, ‘If you’re interested, if you need some hours,’ these places are in need. So it’s also a great way to just connect people in the community back to the community and have some more reciprocity,” Dey said.
Along with receiving food grown in the garden, patrons get MSU publications on how to grow herbs at home, as a way to enhance foods they get at the food bank.
Fresh herbs make all the difference, Mollica said.
“Yesterday, a guy walked up to me and says, ‘I’m making fish tonight and I need some lemon thyme or cilantro. I said, ‘I don’t have cilantro, but I have lemon thyme.’ And then a woman said, ‘Oh, I need some green onions for a dish.’ So, we plucked some green onions for her, and they’re ready to go now, too,” Mollica said.
There are also “dig days” for kids to come help dig up the potatoes, but many times, patrons just stop in because they are curious.
Bigfork Food Bank Director Jamie Quinn said everyone there appreciates Mollica’s dedication and passion. It’s a great effort to collaborate on, she said.
“A lot of times before the pantry opens, she’ll get some produce together and sip some herbs, some lettuces and things, and she’ll talk with some of the people in the pantry while they’re shopping. And it’s just kind of a nice little additional thing to provide some extra dignity and connection to their food,” Quinn said.
Aside from purchasing the containers, Mollica said many of the other elements of the garden were donated, like seedlings and planting soil. Other purchases were paid for through a $1,250 grant she applied for through the Montana Farmers Union this year.
“It’s always been my intention to make this project self-sufficient and not rely on food bank funds,” Mollica said.
It was a gut-punch when 1/3 of their containers were stolen from the property in July. A few weeks later, one of the large cherry tomato containers was also stolen. The incidents required Mollica and staff to start locking up the plants behind the fenced in area by the food bank building every night.
A disheartening incident turned hopeful when the community offered to help. Mollica said within 72 hours, the public responded, including Linda Gannon with Swan River Gardens, who told Mollica she could come grab whatever they needed, as well as another person who donated containers and an additional person who donated potting soil.
“The point I’m trying to make is so much good came out of it. And we’ll never know who took those containers … but I just have to assume that they need it. Because of the stigma for some people of showing up [at the food bank] and asking for help, sometimes it might be easier to just help themselves. I wish they wouldn’t, I wish they would call us and be anonymous. But, so much good came out of it that I try not to think about the other parts,” Mollica said.
In addition to this, Mollica also received 30 struggling tomato plants from a gardening instructor at Flathead Valley Community College. So, she created the “plant infirmary” which lines the outside of the food bank building. After being nursed back to health, many of those plants have been distributed to Bigfork Food Bank and Lakeside Food Bank clients.
While giving away fresh produce is rewarding, getting more people interested in gardening is the other goal for the Bigfork Food Bank project. Mollica said she’d like to do a seed-giveaway next spring, and Dey floated the idea of an accessibility to gardening class, where participants learn how to manage container plants, among other small-space gardening solutions.
Resilience and giving back are part of Mollica’s upbringing. Raised in the aftermath of World War II in Germany, those were years where Mollica and her siblings knew what it meant to not get enough to eat.
“We went to the Eleanor Roosevelt soup line every day, holding up our bowl and getting that soup,” she said.
After moving to the U.S. her family reconnected and settled down in Georgia.
“My parents, aunts and uncles — they all nurtured a culture of giving back. And my mother had many, many sayings. One of them was ‘Always leave a place better than you found it,’” Mollica said.
Quinn said she and the food bank board would like to support the garden as much as they can, but space outside the building is limited. The installation of a new generator, necessary for keeping cold storage food safe when the power goes out, doesn’t allow for anything in close proximity due to its warranty.
But, they are looking at how to maximize space behind the building, depending on “water and drainage.”
Anyone interested in supporting the Bigfork Food Bank or the garden project can learn more at bigforkfoodbank.org.
Taylor Inman may be reached at 758-4440 or [email protected].
Tomato plants growing at the Bigfork Food Bank Community Garden on Wednesday, Sept. 17. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
Green bean plants growing at the Bigfork Food Bank Community Garden on Wednesday, Sept. 17. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
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