LEEDS – Hunger prevention has long been a priority for the University of Maine’s Cooperative Extension programs. Much of that effort has focused on teaching Mainers, both rural and urban, how to grow healthy and nutritious food through advice, educational programs and publications.

In addition, last year the Extension’s Plant-A-Row for the Hungry program resulted in 67,000 pounds of produce being donated from gardeners across the state to food kitchens and shelters.

To further address the hunger problem, several members of the Extension’s master gardener volunteers from Androscoggin and Franklin counties have been working with the Rural Community Action Ministry to provide more than advice about gardening.

“We show people how to grow their own food, to be independent,” said volunteer Margarethe Brown.

She, along with fellow volunteers Brenda Smutney, Patricia McManus and Linette Selah, have been donating their time to the non-sectarian, nonprofit organization, founded in Leeds 32 years ago by the Rev. Carl Geores and several other area pastors and lay people. What started as a housing program grew to include gardening for self-sufficiency and for enjoyment.

Brown said the program doesn’t just help feed people, “It has an impact on self-esteem because it helps people do things for themselves. And they enjoy doing it.”

The ministry has more than 50 volunteers in its gardening program. They provide rototilling, seeds, seedlings, tools, advice and support to more than 175 gardens in 13 communities in Androscoggin, Kennebec and Oxford counties. Maine seed companies, nurseries and other gardeners donate much of the necessary materials.

Cooperative Extension also provides workshops on how to preserve, freeze and store the crops.

The volunteers welcome more sponsors, more participants and more donations. “We’d love to be cloned,” said Brown, who hopes that by sharing their experience more master gardener volunteers and other organizations will establish similar programs in their areas. The ministry is willing to show them how to do it.

This year the program has a part-time coordinator, Wanda Braithwaite-Baril. Braithwaite-Baril began as a participant almost 10 years ago. “They took a girl from New York City and made a gardener,” she said. Since joining as a participant, she has become a volunteer, a ministry board member and now part-time coordinator. Speaking about her own experience, “You have to give back, you just want to.”

Braithwaite-Baril can be contacted at 524-3791 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays or online at [email protected] for those who want more information or visit the Web site at www.rcam.net.