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Farmers Donate Fresh Food To Patients In Need Of Healthy Meals

BOSTON (CBS) - Tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and eggplant, it's harvest time for backyard gardeners and true farmers alike. And now they're sharing the wealth because sometimes there can be too much of a good thing. In this case it's going to a good cause. Farmers are donating fresh food to sick people who need healthy, nutritious meals.

It's one of the busiest times of the year at Community Servings in Jamaica Plain. On Wednesday, a truckload of donated, fresh vegetables arrived from the Community Harvest Farm in North Grafton. For 25 years, Community Servings has prepared and delivered healthy meals to people too sick to shop or cook for themselves.

"Everything from breast cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease, hospice care," says Christopher Muhammad, the Operations Director for Community Servings.

Harvest time is also a time of bounty at the non-profit organization as several local farms donate thousands of pounds of produce. "It's extras. It's seconds. It's uglies, what they refer to as uglies. There's nothing wrong with it, but we've gotten so acclimated at the supermarket that everything has to be perfect, that many times they won't take it unless it looks perfect," says Muhammad.

Well, it tastes perfect and helps provide meals for more than 1500 people in 20 communities. "We're getting produce that was picked the day before, we process it the day we get it or the next day, we make meals out of it right away and it goes to our clients," says Muhammad.

Community Servings is also one of the largest volunteer programs in the state. Every month hundreds of volunteers prepare, pack and deliver meals to people who need a little help.

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