Photos (from top): Courtesy of Sherry Bailey; Courtesy of Amy Grey.
someone with trees bursting with
cherries or a patch full of pumpkins,
“we all pile in the car,” she says. “Tom
and Sam, who are now 9 and 6, love
seeing new places and meeting new
people. Mark and I might sit and have
coffee with an elderly couple before
we pick the peaches in their backyard
and the boys will play with their kittens. They’ll feed apples to the horses
on a farm near an orchard that gave
us several bushels. Or we’ll just sit
right down and eat some of whatever
we’ve picked. I have a picture of Sam
totally covered in cherry juice and
looking really happy!”
The kids still tend their own garden, a
popular field trip destination for their
teachers and classmates. “The students might harvest berries, plant cucumbers, prepare boxes for the food
banks or do crafts, like carving dried
gourds into bird houses,” says Amy.
“They also love making worm bins by
putting shredded paper into wooden
crates. We feed them scraps and then
use their waste as fertilizer—a great
firsthand lesson in ecology. But just
seeing plants grow can be a real
learning experience. One little boy
was amazed to find out that peas come
from a pod and not a frozen dinner!”
With recent requests from Portland, Oregon, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for information on starting
local chapters of Backyard Harvest,
Amy hopes that communities from
coast to coast will follow suit. The
group has also partnered with the city
of Moscow to allow families to use
food stamps at the area farmers’ market to purchase fresh produce. “When
times are tough—and they certainly
are right now—there’s no easier way
to give people nutritious meals and let
them know someone cares,” she says.
Calling All Cooks
Know how to make a delicious
zucchini casserole that even the
kids love? Have advice on preparing
rutabaga or storing peas? Backyard
Harvest is putting together tips and
recipe cards to accompany produce
donations. Go to backyardharvest.org
to e-mail your ideas—or to make a
contribution online. You can also send
a check to Backyard Harvest,
P.O. Box 9783, Moscow, Idaho 83843.
“There’s a special look in people’s
eyes when they receive food from
others who’ve planted and harvested
it with their own hands. I was dropping
off produce at a food bank once when
a woman came up to me and said,
‘This makes me feel loved.’ I told her
it goes both ways. And believe me, I
get more than I give.”
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july.09 family circle 79
The blessings extend to her whole
family. “Mark and I were a couple of
city kids with no idea what to expect
when we got here,” she says. “Now
we feel we belong. In fact, we raved
about Idaho and the Northwest so
much that when my parents retired
last year, they moved from Chicago to
Spokane, Washington. They help out
with the harvest when they visit, right
alongside their grandsons. We’ve all
become friends with many of our
neighbors in need who we’d never
have met otherwise. They’ll be in our
hearts forever.”
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