4 TOWER | FALL 2022 Chip Paillex ’89 always remembers a three-line notice in a weekly newspaper near his New Jersey home. “It said, ‘If you ever have extra produce, grow a row for the hungry and bring it down to the food pantry,’” Paillex recalls. It was 2002 and he had started a 30-foot-by-30-foot garden as a project with his then 4-year-old daughter. Paillex soon dropped off a load of fresh vegetables at the Flemington Area Food Pantry. What happened next changed his life. “A woman ran out after me,” Paillex recalls. “Her face is etched in my mind. She was almost panicked. She said, ‘Sir, promise me you’ll come back again. I’m on a special diet for health reasons and I need fresh fruits and vegetables and they don’t have them here at the food pantry. Will you please promise to come back again?’ I said ‘yes’ and that’s really what kicked it off.” As president and founder of America’s Grow-a-Row, Paillex has more than made good on his promise. The Pittstown, N.J.-based organization, now in its 20th year, has grown from a small garden project to a nonprofit farming program that annually puts 2.5 million pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables into the hands of people without access to healthy food. Funding comes from corporations, individual donors and foundations. Since its founding, the organization has donated more than 15 million pounds of produce. “This isn’t just about getting food to people,” Paillex says of Grow-a-Row’s mission. “It’s about getting healthy food to people. It’s a big deal.” Produce is grown on four farms totaling more than 420 acres owned by America’s Grow-a-Row, as well as on partner farms. Additional food comes from ‘gleaning,’ or gathering food that might otherwise go to waste from supermarkets, orchards or other farms. The produce is distributed primarily in New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania and New York City to food pantries, food banks, soup kitchens, Free Farm Markets where the produce is available at no cost to patrons, and more. One of the outlets, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Cooperative, sends produce to 23 food banks in 11 states throughout the northeast. Distributing free fresh fruits and vegetables answers a critical need for people who live in places considered food deserts – low-income areas with low access to healthy, affordable foods. In the organization’s 2021 annual report, Gabriel Wang-Herrera from the America’s Grow-a-Row-Frankford Free Farm Market, says, “Our community is beyond appreciative of all the fresh produce that has been delivered to our area, which is considered both a food swamp and food desert. Not only does the food provide healthier choices for our people but it helps them redirect their discretionary funds to other necessities of life as well.” Educational programming also is part of Grow-a-Row’s mission. Programs such as Grow-a-Row Kids Farm Days and workshops for BY VICKI MAYK PHOTOS BY CHRIS SPONAGLE Alumnus Chip Paillex ’89 Fights Food Insecurity with America’s Grow-a-Row FEATURE
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