On a warm Wednesday morning, volunteers met outside All Saints Episcopal Church in the affluent Columbus suburb of New Albany.
Shawn Duffy wheeled out a whiteboard and gave the volunteers their harvest orders: tomatoes, collard greens, half a row of lettuce, peppers, squash and zucchini. Pulling carts and carrying crates, they headed toward either of two large, fenced-in gardens encircled by flowers.
The vegetables they gathered would head to Healthy New Albany Food Pantry for that afternoon鈥檚 food distribution and could end up on the plates of hungry families as soon as that evening.
Community gardeners have long been sharing their harvests with friends and neighbors. Now, some gardens are cultivating a solution to hunger, which is on the rise in suburbs like New Albany
鈥淥ur core value is that all people deserve the best that the earth has to offer, regardless of socioeconomic status,鈥� said Reverend Catherine Duffy.
Duffy is the associate priest at St. Patrick鈥檚 Episcopal Church in nearby Dublin, but she and her husband, Shawn, started the garden at All Saints Episcopal when they were members there in 2020. They call it The Garden for All.
It began with three 25-foot rows that produced around 750 pounds of food 鈥� all for local food pantries. The Duffys wanted to provide nutritious foods that would contribute to overall better health 鈥� and they wanted to do it with organic, Earth-friendly gardening.
鈥淗ealth equity depends on good nutrition, and we would very much like to be part of that solution,鈥� Catherine Duffy said.
In its fifth growing season, the now sprawling gardens and nearly 250 volunteers are set to grow around 10,000 pounds of produce and plenty of bouquets of fresh-cut flowers.
Catherine Duffy said it鈥檚 still not enough.
鈥淭he feedback that we get from our pantries is that the need far outpaces what they get from us or what they get from anywhere,鈥� Catherine Duffy said.
An invisible problem
Recently, the Garden for All has started making weekly deliveries to the Healthy New Albany food pantry. The pantry has served 20% more families this year than last, according to director Jennifer Wilcoxon. Just this summer, the pantry served more than 50 new families, mostly with school-aged children.
It鈥檚 not what you鈥檇 expect in the idyllic suburb known for its white horse fences and rolling country landscapes.
鈥淔ood insecurity is definitely in New Albany,鈥� Wilcoxon said. 鈥淚t's moving to the suburbs.鈥�
She said families are moving to New Albany for the schools, but they struggle with the high cost of living. Often, multi-generational families live together in small apartments.
Catherine Duffy believes that creates an often-invisible problem. She hopes The Garden for All helps shines some light on it.
鈥淲e are helping people know that hunger exists, and we are geographically situated in a place where you can't see it,鈥� Duffy said.
But hunger is everywhere 鈥� and everywhere, people are trying to grow solutions.
Urban gardens
In August, the Mid-Ohio Food Collective, which serves 20 Ohio counties, officially opened its 7-acre Mid-Ohio Farm on the Hilltop. The technology-rich urban farm on Columbus鈥檚 west side is already helping supply Mid-Ohio鈥檚 food bank and fresh markets.
The farm is situated on the grounds of what was Ohio鈥檚 first state psychiatric hospital. It was a brownfield -- land that had been developed and carries pollution from industrial use. For that reason, most of the produce at the farm is not planted in the ground 鈥� it鈥檚 floating on hydroponic beds or stacked in towers of buckets. The techniques allow to for high yields and nutrient-rich plants.
Planting at the farm started in March. Since then, just one greenhouse has produced more than 1,600 pounds of food including, around 1,000 pounds of