On August 5th, 2015 multiple members of the Symrise team volunteered their time to help America's Grow-a-Row (americasgrowarow.org). America's Grow-a-Row's mission is to "positively impact as many lives as possible through a volunteer effort of planting, picking, rescuing, and delivering free fresh produce." At America’s Grow-a-Row, they provide fresh, healthy produce to those in need; educate people of all generations about hunger and ways to help; introduce youth to farming and healthy eating; and contribute to the sustainability of agriculture. So far, America's Grow-a-Row has donated almost 3.9 million pounds of produce to charity.
The mission for our Symrise team was to help harvest cabbage at Grow-a-Row's Pittstown Farm in Pittstown, NJ. The team, along with 2-3 other volunteer groups were able to harvest over 24,000 pounds of cabbage during our time in the field. That's over 100,000 servings of cabbage!
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Since we were able to harvest the field of cabbage so fast, we moved on to picking string beans, where we were able to pick over 400 pounds in under an hour. This is just a fraction of the produce that AGAR will harvest this year. In fact, they are aiming to harvest around 1.2 million pounds in 2015. All of the produce harvested on August 5th was picked up immediately by New Jersey Food Banks, who will then distribute it to "food deserts" around the state of New Jersey.
Symrise team members were happy to donate their time and had a great day overall. America's Grow-a-Row president and founder Chip Paillex, who has been recognized by NJ Governor Chris Christie and CNN Heroes among others, was on hand to thank all the volunteers for a productive day and a job well done. The team is looking forward to the next big harvest!
