The Dartmouth Friends of the Elderly donated $1,500 to the Dartmouth YMCA’s Sharing the Harvest Community Farm on July 15.

Friends of the Elderly president Maria Connor explained that they decided to donate proceeds from the group’s recent fundraisers to the community farm because it provides Dartmouth seniors with fresh food. The farm donates food to the Dartmouth Council on Aging, and to a number of food banks and nonprofits on the South Coast.

“We found that the farm is very beneficial for the health of our seniors,” Connor said. “We are very lucky in this community because we still have farms producing fresh food.”

The Sharing the Harvest Community Farm, located at the YMCA on Gulf Road, began operating 11 years ago, according to Mike Mahoney, Executive Director of the Dartmouth YMCA. At the time, the farm only consisted of a few small garden beds, but over the years it has grown into a large 4.2-acre full-scale farming operation.

As the size of the farm has increased, so has the yearly output. Mahoney noted that last year was the most successful output in the farm’s history, producing over 92,000 pounds of fresh food. The farm recently expanded into livestock, and now houses chickens for producing eggs.

Mahoney said that donations are especially important because the farm donates most of its food to a number of non-profit groups on the South Coast to battle hunger and provides residents with access to fresh food.

“We don’t have a revenue except for kind donations and grant funding,” Mahoney said.

For Dan King, who has managed the farm for the past seven years, the community farm represents a truly community-centric project. It is staffed entirely by more than 2,000 volunteers from the community, including children from local schools, college students, adults and seniors. Food is also donated back to the community.

“It’s a volunteer-run effort that supplies food to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford fresh food,” King said. “Without our volunteers, there wouldn’t be a farm.”

The Dartmouth YMCA will also be hosting a fundraiser to support both the community farm and the YMCA’s scholarship program. The Farm to Table dinner will be held on Saturday, July 23.

For more information about the Sharing the Harvest Community Farm, visit ymcasouthcoast.org.