Fall 2025: A Season of Change at PCG

The summer of 2025 has been one filled with tons of beautiful produce and as well as extraordinary change at PCG. Our remarkable volunteers have lovingly tended the garden at St. John’s as well as hauled huge numbers of organic produce donated by the generous farmers and vendors at the Pleasantville Farmer’s Market which helps to support over 3,000 people in need each week.

As I write this today, we have grown, gathered and shared over 13,000 pounds of beautiful fresh produce with those in need through our amazing donation partners; Hillside Food Outreach, The Pantry, Second Chance Foods and Neighbor’s Link. We deeply value the hard work and commitment of these organizations who share our mission to address the urgent needs of people in our community who struggle with food insecurity and look forward to expanding these partnerships in 2026.

To that end, I’m excited to announce that each of our partner organizations, as well as our friends at the Pleasantville Farmers Market, have accepted seats on the PCG Board. We know that engaging these organizations, who are on the front lines of the crisis to access healthy food, will be critical to our growth and directly impact on our mission. The new PCG Board will be approximately 50% Community Members and 50% Community Partners.

I also want to share that several PCG Board members, all of whom have served on the Board for over 10 years, have decided to step away from their roles. I want to acknowledge and deeply thank Sarah Hoadley, Kate Beatley and Linda Spione for their tireless efforts and commitment to the work we do. We would not be here now without their dedication and support. NOTE: founding Board member Beth DeVito will serve as Vestry Liaison.

So what happens next? Let’s discuss…

Nothing much will change for the volunteers at the farmers market. Sue Furniss has done an amazing job managing the volunteer schedule and our new PHS haulers, Brady & Dylan, have successfully filled the vacated shoes of Kelly and Kayla, who left for college this summer. Each of you have carried a heavy load (literally) this year and we are very grateful.

At the garden, the changes will be more obvious. Currently everything we grow at St. John’s is delivered by volunteers to the Neighbor’s Link location in Mt Kisco. This has been our process for many years and these donations have been accepted with gratitude, but we have learned that many of the participants at Neighbor’s Link come from farming families. With Sarah stepping aside, it seemed like a unique opportunity to let Neighbor’s Link clients grow and share their own food with us at PCG. Daniel Arcecuellar, who has worked at Neighbor’s Link for over two years, has accepted a seat on the PCG Board and will take over managing the PCG garden.

I am working with Daniel, who goes by "Daka", to organize a plan and date to put the garden to bed for the season which will be in a few weeks (Save November 15th at 11:30am). There are also a few open board seats that may be of interest to our volunteers. We will send out more details on both of these ASAP.

This is A LOT to process and change is sometimes hard, but we know that our amazing community, our dedicated volunteers and our strong partnerships will continue to move PCG forward on our mission to help those in need.