Annabelle Carr, a Butler Catholic School fifth-grader, was one of the volunteers who helped with lettuce picking at the school garden. The garden, which includes several vegetable and fruit patches, is entirely maintained by volunteers during the summer. SUBMITTED PHOTO

With summer well underway, the Butler Catholic School garden crops are growing like weeds — and producing bushels of fruits and vegetables. Though school is closed for summer vacation, students are still showing up and helping out.

“Because it’s a school garden, the responsibility is the kids’,” said Sister John Ann Mulhern, Butler Catholic principal. “They’re being very active. They make sure the garden is weeded, they pick produce, they water.”

Several students and their families have volunteered to harvest the summer produce and donate it to local meal charities, such as Katie’s Kitchen.

Katie’s Kitchen is a community meal through St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church, one of five free meals served by various churches in Butler from 5 to 6 p.m. on alternating week nights.

Katie’s Kitchen provides a meal Thursday nights at St. Mark’s, 201 W. Jefferson St. Volunteers there recently made good use of fresh lettuce harvested from the school garden.

“I had three beautiful racks of lettuce,” said Justine Brown, who manages Katie’s Kitchen. “We made a good tossed salad.”

The salad accompanied the meal Katie’s Kitchen had already planned. Incorporating other vegetables that the organization had on hand, such as zucchinis and tomatoes, meant Brown and her fellow volunteers could provide visitors with a well-rounded, nutritious summer meal.

“I’m really grateful for any produce,” Brown explained. “The more fresh, real, homemade things that I can provide, the healthier for our clients.”

Like the community meals, the school garden depends on teamwork. It thrives when students, families and staff pool their gifts to reach a shared goal. For students, it’s a real-life example of making a difference in a community.

“If we start something, we keep it going. It doesn’t stop,” Mulhern said. “It becomes a family event.”

As a Penn State Extension Master Gardener, Brown also assists with Garden Club at Butler Catholic.

Seeing students involved with the growing process from start to finish gives her a special appreciation for the collaboration between churches and volunteers that goes into Butler’s community meals. Particularly at a time when communities across the country seem deeply divided.

“It’s brought us together in a common idea of feeding our neighbors,” Brown said. “We’re really coming together in an ecumenical kind of way.”

All the churches involved with community meals count on donations, including Katie’s Kitchen.

“Our budgets are limited,” Brown said. “We’re very dependent upon the community, upon the parishioners.”

To learn how to donate to or volunteer at Katie’s Kitchen, contact St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church at 724-287-6741.

Learn more about activities at Butler Catholic at www.butlercatholic.org

The lettuce picked at Butler Catholic School was donated to Katie's Kitchen for tossed salads as part of a weekly community meal Thursdays at St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church on West Jefferson Street. SUBMITTED PHOTO