Lee resident Dennis Chasteen was up at 5 a.m. on a recent morning to harvest baby spinach from his garden before the heat became oppressive. A retired chemistry professor at the University of New Hampshire, he meticulously tends his 100-square-foot garden, growing more than 30 varieties of organic vegetables in raised beds. 

Once he’d reaped a good haul of spinach, Chasteen and his wife began packaging the leafy greens into recycled containers that he stores in his garage, collected from former UNH colleagues and other friends. By 9:30 a.m., he was at the Seacoast Family Food Pantry in Portsmouth to give away the fresh produce. 

Chasteen has been donating produce to local food pantries for the last four years. He makes the 30-minute trip from Lee to Portsmouth once or twice a week. Last year, he donated about 800 pounds of vegetables to the pantry, and he’s already delivered some 250 boxes of lettuce, spinach, and arugula this year. 

“I enjoy gardening and I recognize that there’s a need. With the economy the way it is, this was an opportunity to give back,” Chasteen said. “It’s quite a lot of work, but I feel that it’s worthwhile and I enjoy doing it.” 

Chasteen isn’t the only Seacoast resident making healthy donations to local charities. A growing number of organizations and individuals across the region are dedicating portions of their farms or gardens to area food banks and pantries, providing fresh and nutritious produce to needy families.

For local pantries, the giving comes at a critical time. The number of families requesting assistance has swelled dramatically in recent years. 

“We have actually quadrupled in the last four years the number of people that we serve,” said Diane Giese, executive director of the Seacoast Family Food Pantry. In 2007, she said, the pantry served around 50 families each month. Now, they serve between 200 and 230 families per month. “It’s really huge.” 

But, with help from local farmers and gardeners, the pantry has also expanded its offerings over the last few years. Located adjacent to Portsmouth City Hall on Junkins Avenue, the pantry’s shelves once were filled almost exclusively with nonperishable canned goods. On a recent weekday, patrons could find fresh corn, apples, potatoes, arugula, tomatoes and more—even kumquats. They also offer eggs, cheese and milk, as well as meat donated by Hannaford Supermarket. 

“We’ve gone from basically not offering anything that is fresh like that three years ago to having this wonderful selection of great, healthy things for our families,” Giese said.

Much of that fresh produce comes from a gleaning program at the Portsmouth Farmers’ Market, held every Saturday in the parking lot outside City Hall. At the end of the day, farmers drop their surplus vegetables into a cooler for the pantry. Other shoppers buy produce specifically to put in the cooler. 

Even this early in the farmers’ market season, the cooler usually fills up completely. Later in the summer, the pantry will be able to fill its three refrigerators. Last year, Giese estimates, the gleaning program yielded about 1,000 pounds of food before the market shut down for the winter.

“By the middle of the growing season, it’s all over the place. It’s like, ‘Oh my God, where are we gonna put this?’” Giese said.

The pantry gets so much food, in fact, that Giese redistributes some of it to the Salvation Army and other pantries. She’s hoping to donate some excess vegetables to the Crossroads House homeless shelter this year.

The pantry is also raising its own garden in a small plot in front of its building, growing tomatoes and herbs like basil and parsley. Giese said she was inspired by Michele Obama’s garden at the White House, but also by people like Chasteen, who grow food specifically for donation to charities.  

Sara Zoe Patterson, of Seacoast Eat Local, is hoping even more community members will share in the giving spirit. She said a convergence of factors have led to an increase in people growing food for donation. One is a spike in home gardening, in general, fueled largely by local food initiatives. Another is the recession, which has spurred conscientious citizens to lend a helping hand.

The benefits are numerous. Not only do food pantries have a greater volume of food to offer needy patrons, but the food is fresher and healthier. 

“Being able to donate canned soup is one thing, but being able to donate the fresh foods and vegetables that all of us Americans are so in need of just feels really good for people,” Patterson said. 

A link on the Seacoast Eat Local website (www.seacoasteatlocal.org) provides a list of more than 30 area food pantries that accept donations of fresh produce. 

“It’s definitely a myth that food pantries don’t want fresh food. They absolutely do, for the most part, and their clients absolutely do,” Patterson said.

The site also provides information about resources for growers, including the Plant a Row for the Hungry program. Since 1995, Plant a Row has resulted in the donation of more than 14 million pounds of food across the United States, and the Seacoast chapter is hoping to build on that success locally.

Kim Truesdale, a Newfields resident and leader of the group 5210 Steps Up!, is spearheading local efforts around Plant a Row, encouraging gardeners to dedicate a row of vegetables to a nearby food pantry. The focus of 5210 Steps Up! is to promote healthy eating and physical activity to reduce childhood obesity. But eating healthy can be especially difficult for economically strapped families, she said.

But the Seacoast is teeming with passionate gardeners. “How wonderful will they feel when they can donate some of their beautiful produce?” Truesdale said.

One such gardener is Chris Skoglund, who has a 2,000-square-foot garden plot at his Durham home. Last year, Skoglund donated roughly 200 pounds of potatoes to various charities. This year, he’s growing potatoes, tomatoes, squash and a few other vegetables, a large portion of which he will donate.

Skoglund also gives vegetables to friends and trades them for fresh maple syrup. But he said donating food to low-income families is especially rewarding. 

“My entire life, I’ve been very fortunate to never know what hunger is. I think one of the things is it’s something that I can do even though my wife and I, we’re comfortable, but we don’t have a lot of surplus,” he said. “This allowed us to provide something when our salary wasn’t allowing us to donate hundreds or thousands of dollars to charities.” 

The Coastal Clovers 4-H Club, based in southern Maine, has taken the concept to another level. Growing at Zach’s Farm in York, the group has donated more than 13,000 pounds of fresh produce to pantries around York County over the last three years. Clovers leader Russell Osgood said they would plant 1,500 sweet potato plants this year.

Zach’s Farm lets the Coastal Clovers use three 700-foot rows to grow their potatoes, along with a range of other vegetables and fruits, including tomatoes, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, cantaloupe, winter squashes, kale, green beans, carrots, beets and Swiss chard. The 4-H kids began planting in early June, and Osgood said they are thoroughly engaged in the process.

“They seem to enjoy the community service side of things,” he said. “It’s rewarding to know that the food is going to people that really need it, and it’s good, healthy food.”

Church groups, too, are getting kids involved in efforts to grow food for the hungry. The Congregational Church in Exeter, for instance, has installed a community garden to grow produce for its own food pantry. 

“The children put the soil in the beds and planted the seedlings, and various people and families have signed up to water and weed the garden throughout the summer,” said Renay Allen, office manager at the Congregational Church. 

The garden fits in with the church’s environmental and social justice mission, reducing its carbon footprint and improving local health. 

“Sometimes the food costs of fresh food, farmers’ market food, are out of reach of people with lower incomes,” Allen said. “It creates a disparity and impacts their health negatively, so we’re trying to balance that out.”

The church’s food pantry is open every Tuesday morning from 10 a.m. to noon and currently serves about 25 families per week. They harvest fresh vegetables every Tuesday morning and distribute them directly from the pantry. June 7 provided their first lettuce harvest of the year. They’re also growing tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers and green beans, with seedlings provided at a discount from New Roots Farm in Newmarket. 

Truesdale and Patterson continue to spread the word about Plant a Row and recruit more farmers to donate food. Truesdale said she’s been encouraged by the positive responses she’s received around the region. 

Giese at the Seacoast Family Food Pantry, for one, welcomes the rising interest in providing fresh food to those in need.

“It’s exciting to think that people are kind of jumping into this,” she said. “It’s so important for people not only to be able to eat, but to be able to eat healthy foods.”