Peck’s Pepper Pickers: Third Grade Volunteers with Grow-a-Row

Third graders rolled up their sleeves while volunteering with America’s Grow-a-Row to harvest peppers for a cause they could feel proud of!

Grow-a-Row, a nonprofit operating 423 acres across four locations, donates fresh produce to food pantries and shelters across the country while educating communities facing food insecurity on nutrition and healthy eating. Peck’s third graders joined Grow-a-Row’s Pittstown (NJ) farm for its final day of the harvest season, where they discovered the dedication and resilience it takes to cultivate a successful farm.

The grade’s travel to the Pittstown farm was also a last-minute, weather-related change from potato harvesting at another location—which meant students not only experienced the effort of a harvest but also saw firsthand how adaptability is essential in real-life farm work. 

This shift, along with the knowledge that any peppers left behind would go to waste (and there would be less food for those in need) motivated students to maximize their efforts.

“Our trip to Grow-a-Row was truly meaningful. Third graders directly served their community by ensuring that people would have food on their tables. There was nothing glamorous about it, just hard work—and every bit of it mattered,” said Third Grade Homeroom Teacher Katie Bruno. 

In just two hours, Peck’s third graders harvested a remarkable 2,400 pounds of peppers—enough to feed 9,500 people, and so many that Grow-a-Row even ran out of bins in which to carry them all! Third graders left with a sense of pride in the work they put in that day, knowing that they had a direct hand in improving their community.