Berry Unexpected: NJ Farm’s Surprise Harvest Helps Feed the Hungry

Tiffany Bohlin didn’t expect to harvest any blueberries this year. 

Every eight or nine years, she prunes back the 40,000 plants at her Blue Forests Farm in Lacey, Ocean County, as part of the natural growing cycle. But when she began pruning this year, she discovered an unexpected bumper crop.

“We have donated to Fulfill in the past, especially during the pandemic,” said Bohlin, who called Triada Stampas, President & CEO of Fulfill, the food bank of Monmouth & Ocean counties, and Fulfill Board of Trustees Chairwoman Susan Kyrillos to offer the donation.

To put the scale of this year’s crop in perspective: a standard serving size of one cup of blueberries is just under a third of a pound. That means the 80,000 pounds of fruit Bohlin pledged could provide a single serving for approximately 245,400 people – a harvest with the potential to reach nearly a quarter of a million individuals in need. 

The challenge: how to harvest and distribute 80,000 pounds of blueberries.

That’s when Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) and its Women in Leadership employee resource group stepped in. As longtime volunteers with Fulfill, they rallied to help with the harvest. 

“It’s extremely important to be a good partner to an organization like Fulfill,” said Sam McGarrigle, a distribution technician at JCP&L and board member of Women in Leadership, which is a group of JCP&L employees committed to developing current and future women leaders and addressing the challenges of work-life balance. “They have a lot of programs to assist those in need, and the underserved is greater than you expect.”

Fresh produce is one of the most in-demand items at Fulfill, but one of the most rarely donated. “As a foodbank, most of the food we receive by donations is shelf-stable,” said Stampas. “When we think about the people we serve and what they need, it’s protein, produce, dairy – those perishable items that happen to be the most nutritious, but also the most expensive, so the hardest to afford at the grocery store.”

Recognizing the importance of the work and the leadership displayed by the JCP&L volunteers, Doug Mokoid, FirstEnergy’s President, New Jersey joined them in the fields, along with Kyrillos, Stampas and New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy.

Together, they harvested hundreds of pints of the blueberries – an important historical crop in the state. New Jersey is considered the birthplace of the modern blueberry and was once among the world leaders in blueberry cultivation. Today, many commercial varieties of blueberries grown across the globe can be traced back to their New Jersey roots.

JCP&L has continuously supported Fulfill’s efforts to get blueberries and other fresh, local produce to families in underserved communities. In 2022, JCP&L’s Green Team volunteers planted 110 fruit trees at Fulfill’s Neptune headquarters. Women in Leadership and Green Team volunteers expanded the fruit forest with dozens of additional apple, pear and peach trees last year. 

“Seeing Fulfill’s operation and the end result – getting food to families in need – we couldn’t be prouder to be associated with them,” said Mokoid. “New Jersey is a great state, we love it, and anything we can do to support its people, we’re here for it.”