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Dan Kelly's Korner: Potato Project growing bigger by the year
Originally Published: 8/15/2011
In less than three years, Walt Zawaski's plan to plant potatoes for the poor has gone from the acre and a half in his Richmond Township backyard to a regional produce operation.
Walt and his wife, Linda, a Diaconal Minister in the ELCA of the PA NE Synod planted 1.5 acres of potatoes in 2009 and, he confesses, they almost didn't make it the first year.
"We were hard-pressed to get it done that first year, so much so that we weren't going to do it again in 2010," Zawaski said.
But then congregations at Trinity Lutheran Evangelical in Kuztown and St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Fleetwood stepped up. Together with other volunteers they picked 7,800 pounds of potatoes and distributed all of them to needy families, local food pantries and the Greater Berks Food Bank.
The following year, the Rev. Paul Hansen, pastor of Zion Moselem Evangelical Lutheran Church, Maxatwany Township, offered 5 acres adjacent to his church and the effort became known as "The Potato Project."
"We planted 6.5 acres in 2010 and the weather was a little better so we harvested more than 28,000 pounds of potatoes," Zawaski said.
In 2010 during the growing season, which runs from mid-April until the first hard frost, normally in mid-November, over 467 documented volunteers from more than 30 organizations came out to help.
But The Potato Project really took off this year after Zawaski posted his two-word thesis to the doors of his and other churches in the community and on the Internet. Zawaski's message: "Got dirt?"
Photo Courtesy of Sara Hertzog Maidencreek Church
Keith Lichtenwalner of Trinity ELC drives a load of potatoes from a field in Maxatawny Township at Zion Moselem ELC. The recent effort was a part of "The Potato Project," a volunteer effort organized by Walt Zawaski of Richmond Township. The potatoes were picked by volunteers from Maidencreek Church, Blandon, and donated to the Fleetwood Food Pantry.
The faithful responded and this year the project has planted 13.2 acres on a variety of lots, and hopes to harvest 58,000 pounds of spuds.
One of the groups harvesting this year was organized by pastor Sara Hertzog of Maidencreek Church in Blandon. Hertzog said about 30 volunteers picked 2,020 pounds of potatoes in about four hours on a recent Saturday. All the pickers were treated to beverages and french fries after they were done.
"We wanted to do it last year, but they had all the potatoes picked before our turn came up in November," Hertzog said.
Zawaski said that with an influx of volunteers, they were able to finish the harvest in the third week of October last season, but this year he fears The Potato Project may be back in the same situation it was in its first year: too many potatoes and not enough pickers.
This year the project has gone regional. Groups from Schuylkill and Lehigh counties and Philadelphia, as well as New Jersey are either volunteering to help with the harvest or are receiving potatoes at their churches or food pantries, Zawaski said.
"I think lots of people want to help others, they just don't know how to go about it," he said. "I wanted to help others and somehow found a way."
In Kelly's Korner, Dan Kelly writes about the people and personalities that make Berks County special. Contact him at 610-371-5040 or dkelly@readingeagle.com .
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