Feeding the community in need at Garden of Health Food Bank begins with one man's volunteerism

Charlie A. Harris, 24, knows a thing or two about property maintenance that others may not – like how sometimes, you must do it for free for the betterment of your hometown.

The owner and operator for 14 years of CLC Property Maintenance – formerly Charlie’s Lawn Care – volunteers his time in the community nearly as much as the services he provides to the clientele.

Take the 150-plus man hours the Upper Gwynedd resident puts in mowing, tilling and preparing the eight acres of community farmland in Hatfield used by the Garden of Health Food Bank, a nonprofit that turns around and sources more than 600,000 pounds annually of produce and fresh produce and foods free of the top eight allergens to food pantries, low-income senior housing and community groups in Montgomery and Bucks Counties, like Manna on Main Street.

Last week, Harris was in the tractor himself at Garden of Health’s farmland near Fairgrounds and Clemens roads in Hatfield Township, tilling another two acres for the Upper Gwynedd Township-headquartered food bank.

“Within two weeks in the spring, and two weeks in the fall, we’ll put in 150 man-hours between me and my guys,” Harris said. “We do it all for free. That’s the main thing we do around her that people will know about us.”

One day, Harris is donating his time to “Hooked on Fishing, Not on Drugs” in New Jersey, and another he is helping local Boy Scouts with Eagle Scout projects, such as the rain garden at Fourth Street Park or the butterfly garden coming to White’s Road Park in Lansdale.

“They need a walkway dug, about eight people are coming to help, and they’re planting about 85 to 90 plants,” Harris said. “I said, ‘We’ll take one thing off your plate. How’s that sound?’ We help the community and get some PR too.”

Other times, Harris can be found volunteering his truck to pull floats in parades or offering to pick up scrap or debris for people. Once, he helped a veteran in need by fixing and installing his flagpole.

Harris said about 50% of what Garden of Health Food Bank has planned at the garden involves out-of-pocket costs, including a gazebo and patio. Instead of the $50,000 cost for materials and labor, Harris stepped in and gave them an option to, in theory, not pay for materials. Plus, the 10,000 or so pounds of green waste debris, like weeds, plants and grass, is composted back to nature.

At present, he is working on digging the nonprofit a base for a stone driveway, before he hauls in stone.

There was another instance where a tractor purchased by Garden of Health was a wild machine, as Harris explained, that not just anybody could handle when in operation. Something like that, he said, would work for small tilling, but not for acres. Then, the nonprofit would shell out hundreds of dollars multiple times a year to rent it.

Harris, on his own accord, went out, found a decent, affordable rototiller and put it on the front of his machine. To Harris, he is not buying something to help him in a garden; it is to benefit him and the town in the long run.

“They want to pay us for it, and we’re not going to take it,” he said. “That is money that can be used elsewhere. They are being frugal. I can get these people the tools they need.”

Carol Bauer, founder and COO of Garden of Health Food Bank, called Harris and his company “our angel.”

“He was raised right to give back to his community,” Bauer said.

Garden of Health Food Bank began with a passion and dream in Harleysville before relocating to a warehouse at 201 Church Road in Upper Gwynedd.

Now, it harvests and farms eight acres on Clemens Road given to it by Hatfield Township, Bauer said.

“Hatfield Township gave us that farm. Clemens gave it to Hatfield Township, and Hatfield Township asked us if we wanted to expand our growing. At the time, we were growing on one acre of land (The eight acres) is the only location we have for growing now,” she said. “We have a zero-cost lease and Hatfield supported us to put in grants for us to build that farm location up.”

When Bauer started out in Harleysville on one acre, she headed to social media and posted a Facebook video asking where to begin to make it feasible farmland and reaching out for help.

“Within two days, Charlie was meeting me at the location and that was five years ago. He took a field that was as tall as I was, and chopped it down so we could start growing on the field over in Harleysville,” she said. “He kept the field cut for us. On the new farm, he did the same thing and will be helping us build bins for compost, mulch, and mushroom soil.

“Without him, we would not be able to do half the stuff we do,” she said. “He helps will tilling, mowing, and issues with fencing.”

The goal with the farm, Bauer said, is to not only provide food that goes out to more than 65 agencies in Montgomery County, but also grow it into a site for education and job training, and a place for the community that likes to be around nature to gather.

“We can’t do what we’re doing without community support and community volunteering,” Bauer said.

During the Covid years, Harris offered charitable grass mowing to nurses and essential personnel in the neighborhood to give them one less thing to worry about, he said.

“Grass would get three, four feet high, and that’s when we had time,” he said.

Harris said he never expects anything in return.

“I don’t look at it as a thing I’m going to get something out of one day. If I never get anything out of it, I don’t get anything out of it,” he said. “As long as I’m able to help, that’s the goal. I saw a need.”

Garden of Health, he said, is grateful for any help from the community.

“When they need something done,” he said, “we are the first or second call.”

Bauer said Harris gives back in a lot more ways than just helping her nonprofit.

“He’s a godsend,” she said. “Without him, we wouldn’t know where we would be on the growing side of Garden of Health.”

Volunteer at and donate to the Garden of Health Community Garden here.