Programs & Services

Food Growing Program

The Food Growing Program is a partnership of the Food Bank with several local organizations to cultivate unused land for growing fresh produce for hungry Westchester residents while also training at-risk populations and others how to grow food. The harvested produce is donated to the Food Bank and distributed to local hunger-relief agencies. The FBW “farm” encompasses approximately 2.5 total acres at 5 sites:

• Leake & Watts Residential Campus, Yonkers, for emotionally challenged children
• Westchester County Department of Correction, Valhalla
• Woodfield Cottage,  a Leake & Watts facility, Valhalla, a juvenile detention center/school for youths awaiting trial
• Edenwald School, Pleasantville, for emotionally challenged children
• Sugar Hill Farm-Westchester Land Trust, Bedford Hills

In addition, Muscoot Farm, another partner, is lending the Hoop House (greenhouse) for seed sprouting and production and helps us in other ways..

Food Bank Food Growing Program Coordinator Douglass DeCandia aims to produce 10,000 lbs. of food once the program is fully operational.

NEW YORK SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF- FANWOOD GARDEN, WHITE PLAINS

Preparing the beds at Fanwood Garden at the New York School for the Deaf campus on Knollwood Road, White Plains

WOODFIELD COTTAGE, A LEAKE & WATTS FACILITY, VALHALLA

Left: Swiss chard harvested from the Food Growing garden at Woodfield Cottage in May 2011. Right: A youth from Woodfield Cottage tend to collard greens in the vegetable garden.
	The gardening area was greatly expanded at Woodfield Cottage this year.	Mustard greens growing at Woodfield Cottage.

Rymale Benjamin, a student, plants kale in the new vegetable garden in June 2010.	Angela Romero, also a student at the Leake & Watts Campus, stakes tomatoes in the garden in early summer 2010.	Cucumbers, eggplants and squash harvested from the Food Bank Food Growing garden, September 2010.
Tilling the new field at the Leake & Watts Residential Center in Yonkers.	The newly tilled field at the Leake & Watts Residential Center in Yonkers is larger and sunnier than the original plot.

The DOC Food Bank Food Growing garden in summer 2010. The garden was first established in 2005-06.	Food Bank volunteer Bill Scazzerfo, a vegetable gardening pro, oversees an inmate unloading compost.	Cantaloupe ready nearly ready to be harvested, summer 2010

Planting sweet potatoes, June 2011