The Fruit of Volunteer Labor: One Teen Harvests Hope

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Elizabeth Milgrim. Read her story, and nominaten outstanding volunteer or family as a Daily Point of Light.

When the branches of Elizabeth Milgrim’s pear trees saw the weight of a heavy harvest, the 14-year-old saw more than just a surplus of fruit. While most would see a chore or maybe a gift for neighbors, Elizabeth saw a solution to a local crisis. Disturbed by the idea of fresh food going to waste while neighbors struggled with food insecurity, she took her extra yield to a local church pantry. That first delivery sparked a realization: if her backyard was overflowing, others likely were too. With a quiet determination, she stepped into the role of founder and launched Garden Givers Port Washington (GGPW), a grassroots initiative designed to bridge the gap between local gardens and hungry families.

The brilliance of GGPW lies in its simplicity, as well as Elizabeth’s ability to mobilize her community through social media. The organization’s volunteers act as a mobile bridge, driving to residential homes to collect donated produce and delivering it directly to the pantry. This ensures that home-grown nutrition reaches those who need it most, without placing the burden of transport on the donors or the recipients. In less than two years, this teen-led movement has successfully diverted and donated over 600 pounds of food.

Elizabeth is a creative thinker who sees potential where others see waste. When she encountered fruit too overripe for the pantry shelves, she didn’t toss it, but rather partnered with a local ice cream shop to transform the produce into a custom flavor. She also harvested vegetables from a school garden and, in a characteristic touch of grace, began delivering homegrown flower bouquets to pantry clients. Elizabeth remains humble, yet her vision has cultivated a more resilient and connected community in Port Washington. By turning backyards into “giving gardens,” she has created a sustainable model of neighborhood altruism that nourishes both the body and the spirit. Read on to hear more of her remarkable story.

Tell us about your volunteer role.

I’m the founder and president of Garden Givers, which I started the summer going into my freshman year of high school. Basically, what I do is coordinate all of the pickups and drop-offs of the produce. I’m in communication with the food pantry and different local organizations that support us, and I’m also in communication with local schools to help with their garden. I also run all of the social media and publicity for the organization, and coordinate with the other volunteers.

What inspired you to get started with this initiative?

I have a small home garden in my backyard, and it was kind of more of my parents’ thing. They really enjoyed it, and I would always garden with them, but I was never really super interested in gardening. But we have a pear tree, and one summer, there was just so much fruit that we had no idea what to do with it. I suggested to my mom, “Is there any way that we could donate some of this fruit to people who may not be able to have access to fresh produce?”

We looked into connecting with the local food pantry. And once I started doing that for my own home garden, it made me really want to connect with the greater community and share my passion for volunteering and reducing food waste. I realized how much I cared about providing necessary foods to community members who don’t necessarily have access to it.

Why are you passionate about food insecurity?

Ever since I was young, I’ve always felt that everybody, no matter who they are or where they come from, should have their basic needs met. They should have access to food. Especially within my community, I don’t think I realized how much it impacted different community members or even my peers, until I was older. I think seeing the appreciation from the food pantry has only deepened my support for this cause.

While climate change is obviously a big topic on news media right now, I think that helping community members in need, specifically through Garden Givers, also aims to help with this. We reduce food waste by getting produce from people’s home gardens. Those foods, if they weren’t collected and donated, would probably just end up going to waste. And I really don’t think our planet needs more of that. So with this organization, I’ve combined these two ideas of helping the community while also
reducing food waste.

What’s been the most rewarding part of your work?

I think the most rewarding part of running Garden Givers has been realizing the impact I’ve made. When I started this, I didn’t set out to reach a certain number of pounds donated. I really just wanted to help the community, and that’s my goal even now. But I think over the summer, when we hit 600 pounds donated, that was kind of when it really clicked for me. I was like, “Wow. This is not just a small thing.” I’ve been able to make a huge impact, which I’ve been really grateful for. And I think also seeing different community organizations and the food pantry and the schools, all of their appreciation for the organization, has been really amazing and just makes me even more passionate about what we’re doing.

What are your long-term plans or goals for organization?

This summer, I’m planning to have more volunteers that aren’t just high school age, but adults or even younger kids. I want other demographics to help volunteer with the organization. And I’m going to be starting a student executive board. I would like to hopefully partner with more schools. Currently, we’re partnered with one elementary school in my community, and we’re working on a partnership with another one, and I would like to partner with any local schools that have gardens or want to teach their students about gardening or food insecurity. I think it’s really important to teach young children about these topics.

Additionally, I would also like to hopefully expand into different towns, because, well, it’s been amazing to make an impact on my town, but I’d like to take this model elsewhere. I think that if I can find connections in other local neighborhoods, I could hopefully expand my impact into those communities as well.

What have you learned through your experiences volunteering?

I think I’ve learned a lot of things I can take pretty much anywhere. I’ve learned how to run an organization, communicate effectively, do any sort of media. I never really had done any of that before, and this organization kind of forced me to learn how.

When we partnered with a different organization called the Grow Food at Home Club, which is a group of community members who enjoy gardening and sharing tips and progress in their home gardens, I found one of the members is a master gardener. She’s been a really big help in teaching me about gardening and plants and when different things need to grow, when the right times are for different plants. It’s been really nice to learn all of that because, like I said before, I didn’t really know that much about gardening before starting this organization. It made me a lot more interested in and passionate about something that I just used to do with my parents because they liked it.

Why is it important for others, especially youth, to get involved with causes they care about?

I’m a big believer in that nothing changes unless you try to change it. If anyone sees anything in their community that they believe can be changed for the better, I think that it’s really important, especially for young people, to know that there’s a possibility for them to change it. It’s not like everything has to remain the same. There is always a possibility for you to help change it. If you’re driven and you have the right ideas, you really can make a huge impact, even more than you might have thought at first.

Any advice for people who want to start volunteering?

Even if you’ve never tried volunteering, just go for it! I think taking that jump and starting with volunteering can feel like a big leap. But if you just go for it, nothing bad can come out of it, right?

Do you want to make a difference in your community like Elizabeth? Find local volunteer opportunities.