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A Brooklyn food pantry is abuzz about its new beekeeping project to fight hunger — harvesting and bottling the honey from two hives.
“BEE’ing Against Hunger” is the latest creative idea from the Rev. Melony Samuels, who won a New York Post Liberty Medal for Leadership in 2009 for founding the BedStuy Campaign Against Hunger, a supermarket-style food pantry that helps low-income families.
The honey will be given to needy families and sold to the public, and the beekeeping itself is a way “to train teens and give them beehive-management skills,” she said.
The pantry has a great need for monetary donations from the public because deep cuts in government funding have left it struggling to help an ever-growing number of people, Samuels said.
“We saw a 38 percent increase in new families since May, and another increase when school closed for the summer,” she said. “Families are standing on line hoping to get enough food so their children don’t go to bed hungry.
“A man just came in who lost his job in June, and said his family has been eating just rice for the last three days. That’s how bad it has gotten. Families are desperate and at risk of going hungry every night.”
The nonprofit, founded in 1998, has two urban gardens that supply fresh produce to the pantry.
Those who wish to donate can visit http://www.bedstuyagainsthunger.org.