'Sharing Project' Teens Help Feed Mendham, Chester People In Need

MENDHAM, NJ — As colder weather sets into the region, "The Sharing Project" is gearing up for its next season, having already helped local families in need by supplying them with fresh produce, while teaching students about gardening, healthy nutrition and environmental awareness and sustainability.

The non-profit initiative is the brainchild of siblings Matthew and Emily Borinshteyn, Matthew Borishteyn a freshman in college and his sister a junior at West Morris Mendham High School, who started The Sharing Project to make a difference in the community.

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“Our family has always loved gardening and being surrounded by this love for gardening inspired both Matthew and I to crest and carry on this organization,” said Emily Borinshteyn.

In 2020, their first season, the Borishteyns and youth who joined them, were able to donate more than 600 pounds of fresh produce.

Over the summer, Emily Borinshteyn said she and a friend, Anushka Elavia, who is a fellow junior at West Morris Mendham High School, founded the Young Gardener Club, meeting each Sunday with 11 students including middle and elementary schoolers, during the summer, who helped them to garden. The teens have four garden plots at the Chester Community Garden, as well as plots with the group’s Randolph chapter partnered with another group called “Cteen;” and at the Community of St. Baptist Church’s “Garden of Hope.” There’s a garden underway on Mount Pleasant Road in Mendham, Borinshteyn added.

After planting their seeds both figuratively and literally, the fruits of the students’ collective labor - some parents also chipping in from time to time to lend a helping hand - generated over 1,200 pounds of fresh produce some of this which they’ve also harvested from local farms, that they donated to the Chester Mendham Food Pantry and to the Interfaith Food Pantry.

According to their Facebook Page, their efforts during the past growing season at the Chester Community Garden alone harvested more than 12 pounds of French radishes, as well as Kale, Swiss chard and carrots.

With the garden season winding down and fall crops in the ground, including radishes, kale and chard, as well as garlic that sustains through the winter, the group will get ready to help some more in the early spring, when Borinshteyn and the others working with her start growing seedlings indoors for the next season.

The Rotary Club of Mendham just gave The Sharing Project a helping hand this past Sunday by assisting student volunteers to build five garden beds at the Mount Pleasant Road garden area, with a local couple having donated a shed, plus garden beds, tomato cages and stakes.

For more information about The Sharing Project, visit them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/The-Sharing-Project-100773538293471 and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thesharingproject/.

Questions or comments about this story? Have a news tip? Contact me at: jennifer.miller@patch.com.