The City is opening up - for some. Our elders are still vulnerable to COVID and its variants and homebound because of their age and health. We want to make sure they can stay home and still have access to healthy food.

A year ago, the Phoenix Community Garden formed the Elder Box Program to provide fresh fruit and vegetables to elders in Ocean Hill-Brownsville and East Bushwick who are isolated because of the pandemic. We began with a dozen elders and thought we'd be doing this for a few months. One year later, we provide food security to 78 elders each week (and counting). Our team of volunteers source, pack, and deliver the bags of produce and pantry staples following social distancing protocols. These volunteers are also checking in with the elders, making sure they're ok and have everything that they need. A year into the pandemic, the future is still uncertain when our Ocean Hill and East Bushwick communities are some of the most at risk communities for the variants of the coronavirus. We are committed to providing food security to every elder by providing them with a fresh food box every week. We've delivered more than 3,500 Elder Boxes in the past year!

Our work has been successful and recognized. We were featured in National Geographic's How are older Americans fighting isolation during the pandemic? and by the New York Times' If All the Stores Close, We Need Food’: Community Gardens Adapt to the Pandemic.

Volunteers pack bags every Friday evening and then meet at Phoenix Garden every Saturday morning to deliver bags. We provided this security to our elders through the spring of 2020, when we didn't know what was happening, the summer and the fall when things got worse, and got better, and then worse again, and through the winter when the cold and snow added to the food insecurity challenges. We're still delivering Elder Boxes each week.

Thanks to the generous supporters of our previous IOBY campaign, we have funding to continue the program through July 2021. However, we need to continue the program through the end of the year to assure that our elders have the food they need and are now raising money for our work from August 1 through December 31, 2021. In those five months, with your help, we will deliver another 1,600 Elder Boxes.

Phoenix Community Garden Elder Box ProgramProject photos

Phoenix Community Garden Elder Box Program
Project photos