“They are not for me,” replied the women “some friends are down on their luck, so I’m helping them out with groceries.”
I love this time of year when tomatoes are a plenty.
I recently joined a farm co-op, where you work a few hours a week in exchange for vegetables, meat, and eggs. They just started the work co-op about a month ago, and conversations are plentiful among members about the positive impacts it is having on their lives. I was having one such conversation last Saturday as I helped clear out an area for fall planting.
We were chatting about the wonderful opportunity it gave us, the grounding feeling of working for our food and how rich we felt eating it, when a relation of the land’s owner came up to pick some tomatoes.
“What are you making?” asked my fellow co-op member.
“They are not for me,” replied the women “some friends are down on their luck, so I’m helping them out with groceries.”
As she worked her way down the tomatoes and to the peppers she explained that she was getting them everything they need to make a big of pot of chili, enough to freeze. Something to fill their stomach, and warm their souls.
Looking at the red tomatoes in her arms I couldn’t help but smile. It’s hard to feel down on your luck with a few of those at hand. There is something about a good meal that makes life feel abundant.
I hope that her friends feel abundance and love when they sit down to that meal of red hot chili.
Elise Springuel is an AmeriCorps*VISTA working with the Presbyterian Hunger Program and she likes her tomatoes hot off the vine.
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