PCG August Spotlight: Celebrating #NFMW and our generous friends at Gajeski Family Farms

This week marks the end of the 26^th annual National Farmers Market Week. All of us in Pleasantville are especially fortunate to live in a community where our Saturday farmers market has beautiful, fresh produce and locally made products.

As you may know, PCG has a unique relationship with the vendors at the market. Each and every week, many of them often donate unsold produce and bread to help us address food insecurity in our local community. The actual collection/distribution network has been detailed in our previous blog posts, but to say that we rely heavily on both our huge community of volunteers and our generous farmers each and every week would be an understatement. We could not do what we do without them

One such donation partner is Brian Gajeski, a 4^th generation farmer who has taken what was predominately his families potato fields on the North Fork of Long Island and transformed them into remarkably productive farms that grow and sell “just about every vegetable known to man” that are available at multiple farmer's markets on Long Island, Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, and Westchester county each week.

While we deeply appreciate all of the farmers, we want to shine a light on the generosity of Brain, whose family farm is located out in Riverhead, NY. So far in 2025, Brian and his hard working team have grown and donated an amazing 2,100 pounds of fresh produce to PCG and close to 20,000 pounds since 2020. This is generally perishable food that would otherwise be composted, but our team of volunteers gather, weigh and directly transport the produce after the farmers market closes each Saturday right to our local donation partners: Hillside Food Outreach, The Interfaith Food Pantry and Second Chance Foods.

Although the Pleasantville Farmers Market is unique in that they provide an end of year tax credit to all of the vendors who donate to PCG, Brain says, “just knowing that the food we grow is being eaten and appreciated” is why he is happy to pass it along to those in need. Brain’s donations alone help to feed thousands of people who rely on food banks and pantry’s each week.

With the changing summer climate, complex immigration issues and endless political unrest in Albany & Washington, we know that family farms in NYS face so many challenges, but Brian felt that the NY Farm Bureau had their back. He also appreciated how local famers markets (vs retail stores) have changed the business model for many family farms like Gajeski. Being able to harvest his produce and sell it directly to consumers 24 hours later just makes sense for all the right reasons. We agree.

Many thanks to Brain, his family, market team and all of our wonderful donation partners at the Pleasantville Farmers Market. We are deeply grateful to all of you for your generosity. Let’s end food insecurity together!