As a novice gardener, I have enormous respect and a personal affinity for the agricultural industry and in mid-life have great hopes to produce a respectable tomato in my own little garden on Long Island.

As a young man, my Dad ran his parent’s farm in Fishing Creek Township, Pennsylvania – his work, or in this case his passion, helped see three siblings through college and fed a family of nine. A few years back a friend’s daughter, Tracey, started working in their family business – a 2,000 acre commercial farm operation. As Tracey grew into the business, so did her family – her first son Adam slept away mornings safe and cozy in a car seat while Mom drove the modern-day combine. When I became a “city girl” and moved to Manhattan at 18, every spring I would head home for a weekend to join the gang in the fields to “pick rocks” that mother nature churned to the surface. It was cathartic and took me back to my roots, or in this case rocks.

This past weekend I found myself in the garden, thumbing threw a selection of picture-perfect seed packets for my own personal harvest, and I thought of those that not only can’t garden, but can’t afford food – which led my wondering (which gardening lends itself to) to Randi Shubin Dresner, president and CEO of Island Harvest, and Paule Pachter, executive director of Long Island Cares.

Coming in to work this morning I viewed their websites and came across impactful figures that will make you want to grow your own garden so you can donate a portion of your food-shopping budget, or do whatever you can, to help feed those less fortunate in your neighborhood. In Dresner’s and Pachter’s case, the neighborhood includes an estimated 283,700 hungry Long Islanders annually; among this figure are 110,000 children.

In February 2010, Island Harvest, along with Long Island Cares, participated in one of the most in-depth studies of hunger on Long Island. Hunger in America 2010: The Local Report for Long Island describes the nature of hunger and food insecurity on Long Island as experienced by clients of Island Harvest's and Long Island Cares’ member food pantries, soup kitchens and other feeding programs.

The Hunger in America 2010 analysis reveals that Island Harvest and Long Island Cares
provide emergency hunger-relief services to low-income individuals representing nearly 10 percent of Long Island’s entire population – an increase of 21 percent in unduplicated annual clients since the Hunger in America 2006 report. According to a recent release by LI Cares, hunger advocacy programs across Long Island are reporting an increase of between 30-50 percent in the number of individuals and families requesting assistance.

To access the study, click here or visit: http://www.islandharvest.org/page.aspx?id=76&name=HungerinAmerica

Last week Long Island Cares, Inc. rolled out its latest program in the fight against hunger on Long Island – the Mobile Outreach Resource Enterprise (MORE Van). The first-of-its-kind program in New York and across the country, the custom-equipped mobile food pantry stores approximately 500 pounds of basic staple food items and will provide assistance to an estimated two to three thousand people in need in the first year of operation.

Island Harvest and Long Island Cares provide opportunities to donate food, volunteer, contribute funds and they even provide incentives. For example, to increase awareness for Island Harvest, Kenneth Cole/Roosevelt Field will give you 20 percent off purchases and contribute 20 percent of your total to Island Harvest, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, April 9. Now that’s the ultimate gratification opportunity for any shopaholic – a great sale and you feel good for providing for others!

So, go play in the dirt and make a garden. George Bernard Shaw said, "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." When we were kids, it was the imaginary world within the sandbox, the matchbox truck tunneling through a mud-packed mound of dirt, or building a castle tower of stones, it was uninhibited joy until someone called to come inside – it still can be.

For more on Island Harvest, visit: http://www.islandharvest.org/intro.aspx
For more on Long Island Cares, visit: http://www.licares.org/