by Tavis Joron
Over the weekend of September 12 to 13, seventeen volunteers came together and turned 1,000 pounds of Roma tomatoes into 203 litres of pasta sauce. People drove in from as far as Smiths Falls, while others walked over from a block away. There was pizza, baked goods, and a five-year-old spent six hours washing tomatoes alongside his mom and didn’t want to stop. Phone numbers got exchanged over cutting boards, and people who’d never met left as friends.
More than 80 litres of what we made is going to help with food insecurity in our region — to the Lanark County Food Bank, The Longer Table, and directly to neighbours who just need a hand filling a freezer.
It ran entirely on generosity: St. Andrew’s United Church Pakenham donated their kitchen for the weekend, Pakenham 1840s General Store and Bakery gave us their ovens for a full day, and the tomatoes and vegetables came from Pair A Gardens, Nature’s Apprentice Farm, Wylie Acres, and the food bank’s Blakeney Gardens, plus a lot of home gardens. Patrons bought into the tomatoes which I was able to purchase in bulk, and left with 6 litres for $45 (one bushel’s cost).
I wrote up the whole story as a blog post, including a few things that went sideways along the way, at tavisjoron.ca (a newly minted site I just made for this blog haha). We’re hoping to grow this significantly next year, so there may be a nice follow-up angle down the road too, and most importantly, I want others to create similar initiatives!
On Facebook and Reddit, the story has thousands of likes, comments and shares. People are soaking it up, with many wanting to participate next year and commenting how this is the kind of commendable neighbourly behaviour we need more of. For the Millstone to echo the story would mean even better momentum for next year, where I intend to do 4000 lbs.
