PCG 2025 Summer Blog: Celebrating our Graduating PHS Veggie Hauler Team Leaders, Kelly & Kayla!

The summer heat is ON, which means our Pleasantville Community Garden army of volunteers are hard at work! They are; in the garden harvesting, on the road hauling healthy food up to Hillside Food Outreach or to Neighbors Link in Mt. Kisco and gathering fresh locally grown produce at the Pleasantville Farmers Market each Saturday.

It takes nearly 100 PCG community volunteers each season to do the work we do to help end food insecurity, but there are two young women who we want to take a moment to celebrate this summer. They are Kelly Muldoon and Kayla Robinson, both PHS graduating seniors and leaders of our student “veggie hauling” team each weekend at the farmers market. Rain or shine, they are there!

What’s a veggie hauler do? Kelly explains that as the market comes to a close each Saturday, “we go around to certain market stands and ask if they have any donations for the week. If they do, we take the bins that have their donations and weigh them, then we transfer the produce from their bins to PCG bags and bins. We then repeat that process for the farmers and bakeries on our list. Lastly, we load up the car with all the donations!” Once loaded up, our PCG volunteer “veggie drivers” whisk the produce up to Hillside Food Outreach for distribution to the thousands of people they support.

Recalling that the role of veggie hauler was created back in 2016, long time PCG board member, Kate Beatley shared that, “I can’t say enough about what a truly significant position this is. We rely heavily on these wonderful student volunteers to help us do what we do.”

Kelly, who also works locally and will be headed off to UMass/Amherst to study Biology in the fall, says that what she likes best about the role is, “being able to help people each week from the community.”

Like Kelly, Kayla was recruited by their mutual PHS friend Camilla Zabikhodjaeva to take over the role when she graduated a few years ago. Kayla, who plans to study Business and Computer Science at Northeastern University in the fall, says she hopes to “enjoy my last few moments here this summer spending time with friends, volunteering at the market and enjoying Pleasantville.”

All of us at the Pleasantville Community Garden wish both Kelly and Kayla a summer full of wonderful moments, some well-deserved relaxation and much success as they begin their studies in college in the fall.

Many thanks for all that you’ve done with us to help end food insecurity!