On Your Marks, Get Set, Potato!

November 9, 2010 By Pat Stone Leave a Comment

Fairview’s First Annual Great Potato Race was a, uh, Mashing Success!

All sorts showed up to toe potatoes for the cause. (Photo Credit: Sarah Malinak)

Let’s cut right to the, uh, eye: Just what IS a Great Potato Race?
The simple answer: a great way to Have Fun & Fight Hunger.
For its fall fundraiser, The Lord’s Acre (Fairview’s Garden for the Hungry at The Chapel Door off Joe Jenkins Road) held a very vegetable kind of race. It was not about how far you could run or how fast you could go . . . it was about how many pounds of potatoes you could carry! The more you taters you toted from the garden to Food For Fairview (our community’s wonderful food pantry right below the Community Center), the more money you raised to help us grow fresh produce for the pantry’s client families.

Hot Potato (Photo Credit, Cat Vibert)

The October 16 event drew dozens of racers who carried everywhere from one potato (Rebecca McNair) to 120 pounds of spuds (Walker Sides). Over 1,000 pounds of taters were toted from the plot to the pantry (a spudly amount, wouldn’t you agree?). The youngest entrant was Lily Peterson, aged 7. The silliest potato-carrying system belonged to Anne Tansey, who stuffed spuds down her shirt and her pants! And the best costume? Well, it might have been a toss-up between Zach Bolak, who looked quite fowl in his full chicken suit and Board Member Joseph Malinak, distinctly dainty in his white tutu! (Costumes were definitely in vogue: Pat Stone, Event Coordinator, wrangled entrants as a cowboy, while Head Gardener Susan Sides dispensed wisdom and peppers as a monk!) Everyone who finished got hot dogs,

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full. (Photo Credit, Cat Vibert)

desserts, lemonade, apples, and a very classy A Spud sticker back at the garden, where all had a wonderful time and were serenaded by yoga-instructor-turned-violin-minstrel Kendall Hale.
The Great Potato Race raised over $2,500 to help The Lord’s Acre fight hunger (in large part due to our wonderful business sponsors ( bless you, every one!) and promises to become an annual œfall festivity. Please join us by toting taters in 2012! Then you, too, can Have Fun & Fight Hunger!

: Will Hamilton takes the lead, followed by aâ€¦ chicken? (Photo Credit, Cat Vibert)

Square dance fundraiser scheduled for Saturday Asheville, NC Citizen-Times, May 25, 2010

Beginning at 5 p.m. May 29 will be a square dance fundraiser featuring The Martin Fox Bluegrass Band, with caller Franklin Sides. The event will be held at Sherrillâ€™s Inn at Hickory Nut Gap Farm, U.S. 74A. Everyone should bring a dish to share for the potluck dinner. The event will also include a silent auction, pony cart rides, games, and tours of Sherrillâ€™s Inn.

This is a fundraiser for The Lord’s Acre, a vegetable garden that was started in Fairview last year and has supplied food to Food for Fairview, MANNA FoodBank, Society of St. Andrew and the veterans home on Tunnel Road. The aim is to supply fresh organic vegetables to those in need. Three tons of food was grown on a quarter-of-an-acre last year.

The Lord’s Acre attributes its success to many volunteers, generous donations and garden managers Susan and Franklin Sides.

Suggested donation is $10/individual and $20/family. For more information call 231-7496 or visit thelordsacre.com.

Hey Michelle Obama: Here’s where to get some ideas for that White House garden in the Asheville area Asheville, NC Citizen-Times, April 23, 2010

“…Asheville’s nonprofit Bountiful Cities Project (www.bountifulcities blog.blogspot.com) has a hand in 14 gardens around town, including the Pearson Garden in the Montford neighborhood, just a skip and a jump from the Grove Park Inn. Since the nonprofit is dedicated in part to reducing obesity by improving access to fresh produce, the folks there will have much to discuss with Mrs. Obama.

One of the gardens associated with Bountiful Cities is the Lord’s Acre community garden (www.thelordsacre.org). It’s an entirely volunteer project that produces many tons of fresh-grown food for distribution to needy families.

If the first lady wants to get an early start and some real hands-on tips for her garden and meet a bunch of great local people with big hearts and busy rakes, she could drop by for Saturday’s volunteer day. They start at 8 a.m.

Lord’s Acre is off U.S. 74A, aka Charlotte Highway, in Fairview â€” right down the road from my house. And there’s nothing better after a morning’s work in the garden than a tall glass of freshly brewed mint sweet tea.”

WLOS Asheville, NC News Report May 2009