Opportunity House’s Community Garden Dinner on for September 9

The garden that grows together, feasts together—and everyone’s invited.

Thursday, September 9 from 6 to 8 pm, Opportunity House pitches a huge tent in the grass adjacent to the community garden, and growers will enjoy and share their garden fare, family-style. The event is free.

“We’re excited about the shelter’s participation in the community garden,” says Kate Alley, Opportunity House’s VP of marketing and development. “We wanted to invite the community to eat with us, to thank the garden’s supporters, and to celebrate what our volunteers, and the vibrant neighborhood gardeners, have done here this season.”

The menu will include salad; rustic bread, courtesy of HayCreek Bread of Birdsboro, served with butter and olive oil; pasta with sauce made from heirloom tomatoes; side dishes made with veggies grown in the garden; soda from Reading Soda Works; and ice cream treats from Sweet Ride in Reading. And bring the kids—Emerging Leaders United from the Berks County United Way will have a kids’ craft table where they’ll paint rocks for the garden.

The guest list includes:

• Local musician Renato Sanabria, who will provide music for the event
• Master gardeners from the Penn State Master Gardeners of Berks County, who rescued the garden from its post-lockdown weeds and supervised volunteers to help grow food
• Neighborhood gardeners who brought the garden’s 56 plots to life with a variety of bounty
• The board of directors and friends of Opportunity House

The public is invited to attend, bringing a dish to share is optional. RSVP to [email protected].