Spreading the Tzedek

Yom Tzedek’s impact is reaching beyond the day we spent together in April, learning and doing about Temple’s social justice work.

It had a very personal impact on two doctors named Jim! Jim Reisman is a retired dentist and home gardener who had bounty to share from his country farm in Gordon, Texas. And Jim Brodsky is an orthopedic surgeon with a home garden in Dallas and a lifelong passion for and practice of gardening.

“I always have extra fresh produce after my weekend trips,” says Jim Reisman. “We like to distribute to family and friends, but even then we have extra.”

At Yom Tzedek, Jim had attended the breakout session for the Jill Stone Community Garden and was impressed by the efforts to provide fresh produce weekly to the Vickery Meadow Food Pantry. He asked garden leaders Wendy Leanse and Lori Droppo if the garden could use his extra vegetables. They enthusiastically said yes! So Jim brings by vegetables on Sundays after weekend trips to his farm. He then recruited the other Jim to help. “I garden year round, so I’m happy to bring extra vegetables by on days that the gardeners are harvesting,” says Jim Brodsky.

Wendy and Lori couldn’t be more pleased. “We’re all about ‘grow more, feed more,’” says Wendy. In recent months, the volunteer gardeners have added an extra harvest day and are able to bring fresh organic produce to the food pantry on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. “It’s a great way for people to be involved with the work of the garden.”

Do you have a contribution of fresh vegetables from your home garden that you’d like to share? The Temple garden will nd them a good home. Just contact Wendy at 214.502.2416 or at shoremrcle@aol.com. And you don’t need to be named Jim to help!

On Sundays, Jim Reisman brings his extra bounty from his country garden in coolers to the Jill Stone
Community Garden. Jim Brodsky shares his garden’s abundance on harvest days so it can be included
with delivery to the Vickery Meadow Food Pantry.