New Ipswich farm delivers fresh vegetables to support food pantry

Once a week, Joe Bulger and Susan Hadley-Bulger load up their truck with fresh produce grown at their farm on Old Country Road in New Ipswich.

But instead of taking it to a farmers’ market or farmers’ stand, they take it to the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry in Greenville, where it will become part of the offerings.

Earlier this month, their truck filled with pumpkins, acorn squash, honey butternut squash, onions and peppers, the couple, along with sons Nate and Jeremy, had not even finished unloading when they were approached by a patron of the pantry, asking if they were selling their wares.

“Oh, no. It’s free,” assured Bulger, before encouraging her to take her pick.

As the woman selected some small onions, peppers and a decorative pumpkin, they chatted about the Bulgers’ farm on Old Country Road, and how the woman, 87 years old, is getting along after being widowed some years ago. As she finished her shopping, Bulger said, “That’s why we do this.”

Old Country Road Farm is mostly a hobby for Bulger, who said that after retiring four years ago from a career in electrical engineering, Hadley-Bulger fell in love with a house in New Ipswich that had a three-acre plot next to the house. He said he decided to give cultivating it a go, though he had no experience.

“Farming is new to me. I’m learning as we go,” Bulger said.

Bulger said he played with the idea of a farmstand or selling the produce, but after visiting the food pantry once day, decided to donate their excess there. They are not the only local farm to do so, said pantry President Kevin Little, though some other farms prefer to do so anonymously.

“They put a lot of love into growing these foods. And people love this. On Thursdays, we set up several tables full of fresh vegetables and fruits, and a lot of it is donated by the Bulgers,” Little said.

Little said there are a lot of pieces that go into the puzzle of filling the food pantry beyond just purchasing food at the food bank or collecting donations. Donations from farmers are one piece of that puzzle. Another way to get fresh produce is through purchasing it directly from farmers with the Feeding New Hampshire grant, which provides funds to purchase locally grown and managed produce and protein from local farms. Little said the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry has been benefiting for several years now from the program, and intends to use it to purchase apples from Birchwood in Mason this week.

“It’s a wonderful program. It’s a win-win,” Little said.

Another avenue is the the Fresh Rescue Program, which helps save food that might otherwise be discarded from stores. St. Vincent de Paul has benefited from the program’s partnership with local Dollar General stores, Shaw’s and Hannaford. The program allows for food that would be removed from shelves, but is still viable, to be donated to the pantry rather than discarded.

Building those relationships has also resulted in some windfalls for the pantry when local stores had malfunctioning fridges or freezers. Rather than allow the food to thaw and become unsafe, Little was called in to take the food as donations, and was able to store it in the pantry’s large refrigerator.

“The relationship is very strong, and it’s been wonderful,” Little said. “We get thousands of pounds of food every month. And employees love it, because before they would have to throw out the food, and now they know it’s going to people that really need it.”

Little said it’s all part of the patchwork that goes toward keeping food on the pantry shelves.

“We can’t do this alone,” Little said. “This is all due to the community that supports us. It’s not just one person – it’s the whole community.”

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.