Tuesday, November 3, 2026
A new youth-led project is tackling food insecurity in Rockville Centre with fresh produce and community outreach. Sharon’s Garden is the latest effort supporting Sharon’s Pantry, with local teens organizing donations, coordinating deliveries and raising awareness one grocery bag at a time.
The project, led by local teens Declan Taylor and Ryan Cooke, has quickly grown into a vital source of fresh produce and funding for the pantry — named for Sharon Sheppard, who co-founded it with Rena Riback in April 2020 — all while recruiting a new generation of civic-minded leaders.
“We wanted to find a way to have the community feel involved and bridge the connection and build more understanding, while also helping other people who are in need,” Taylor said. “A large part of the problem is that a lot of people just don’t know about the fact that there are so many people so nearby that are in desperate need of help.”
Every Sunday during the Rockville Centre Farmers Market’s season, from June to December, Sharon’s Garden sets up a stand on the south side of Sunrise Highway across from the GMC dealer, where volunteers hand out fliers and collect donations as well as produce from shoppers. Volunteers also coordinate food pickups and use cash donations to purchase produce in bulk at Costco. That food is delivered to Sharon’s Pantry, based out of the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, for distribution to local families in need.
“We used to get maybe two vegetables, (and) now we have two six-foot tables filled with produce,” Riback said of the weekly haul from the garden.
The teens, along with other volunteers from the community, deliver fresh food to the pantry twice a week, coordinating with its distribution schedule. They have already donated more than 700 pounds of produce this season and raised over $1,500 — outpacing last year’s total of $4,000 — in just a few weeks.
Cooke said their goal is to get kids involved who are truly passionate about giving back.
“I wanted to help foster a community of people who care about this stuff,” Cooke said. “So I think that’s another reason we started Sharon’s Garden, to help out the pantry and to get kids who really care about the mission, and not just to check off the box for their community service hours.”
Taylor and Cooke both take active roles: Taylor helps with volunteer recruiting and community outreach, and Cooke leads the food-distribution efforts at the pantry. Each week, they and their peers help organize, bag and distribute groceries, working side by side with adult volunteers and pantry staff.
The project has gained enthusiastic support from the wider community. Fred Terry & Sons, a farmers market vendor, donates leftover produce each week, according to Courtney Taylor, Declan’s mother and a “facilitator” of the garden, and Homestead’s Hot Sauce contributes jars of hot sauce, seasoning rubs and homemade soups. In June, The Caffé on Park hosted an ice cream social and recruitment night for Sharon’s Garden, donating the ice cream and opening on a Monday night, when the restaurant is normally closed.
“We’ve met a lot of really nice people that we have not gotten to know in our 18 years in Rockville Centre,” Taylor said. “Something like this really does bring people together.”
The garden operates with a rotating team of 15 to 20 youth volunteers, who each commit to helping out once or twice a month. Their work doesn’t stop when the Farmers Market ends for the season — many of the teens volunteer at the pantry as well during the winter months.
“The group of volunteers that we have are just such fantastic kids who are really invested in the mission and in making a difference,” Kate Cooke, Ryan’s mom and another garden facilitator, said.
When Sheppard and Riback founded the pantry five years ago, as the coronavirus pandemic was spreading, it was sponsored by the local organization the Anti-Racism Project. Initially it served just over 20 families, but now it helps more than 100, offering fresh meat, produce and other staples, all funded by the community.
Now, with the addition of Sharon’s Garden, the pantry has been able to expand its offerings and raise awareness about food insecurity in the village.
“That's one of the main things people do not understand in a community like Rockville Centre — that there is a great need for food, that people are suffering from food insecurity, and it’s getting worse,” Riback said, “and (the garden) has helped raise awareness.”
Sharon’s Pantry is in the process of becoming its own nonprofit, though it currently operates under the umbrella of the Anti-Racism Project. The team posts Monday updates on Facebook, through groups including RVC Moms, RVC Network, Rockville Centre Restaurants and others, listing the pantry’s weekly needs ahead of distribution. The pantry also encourages residents to host local food drives at their workplaces or on their blocks.
Monetary donations can be sent via Zelle to antiracismprojectli@gmail.com. Checks can be made out to the Anti-Racism Project and sent to 30 Seaman Ave., Rockville Centre, NY 11570, or to Sisterhood of Central Synagogue–Beth Emeth, at 430 DeMott Ave. in Rockville Centre, with “Sharon’s Pantry” in the memo line.
For more information, visit SharonsPantry.org.
