The Academy of the Holy Cross in Kensington, Maryland launched an innovative sustainable farming project on May 11 with a ribbon cutting and blessing of a cropbox where fresh vegetables will be cultivated and distributed to the poor and food insecure.

“Holy Cross is thrilled to be the site for this outstanding, hands-on learning opportunity for our students, both in sustainable farming and environmentally friendly solutions to impending food shortages,” said Kathleen Ryan Prebble, president of the all-girls school.

The cropbox is a 20-foot by 8-foot reformatted shipping container located behind the school. Cropboxes are designed to be a controlled environmental ecosystem that can produce crops year-round. They also employ the use of hydroponics – growing plants using water-based nutrients.

The cropbox was blessed by Father Scott Hahn, pastor of St. Jerome Church in Hyattsville, Maryland, and a member of the board of directors of the John S. Mulholland Family Foundation, one of the sponsors of the project.

Prebble said that efforts such as the cropbox could help “end hunger, achieve food equity, and promote sustainable gardening.” She added that students and faculty at the school are committed “to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry and no family goes in need.”

The school’s cropbox is the result of a partnership between the Academy of the Holy Cross, the Mulholland foundation and the Center for Urban Sustainability Projects (CUSP).

“There is a critical need to address the rise in food insecurity in Washington’s poorest neighborhoods,” said Leah V. Durant, a lawyer and founder of CUSP. “We believe our hydroponic farming project creates a unique opportunity to provide healthy vegetables, while educating and empowering students to learn about sustainability.”

She said the creation of the cropbox at the Academy of the Holy Cross would “unleash a new method of feeding our working poor.”

Organizers estimated that the cropbox could yield as many as 600 to 900 plants per week, including lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and strawberries. The vegetables will be delivered with roots intact to ensure their freshness. All food grown will be donated to the five food pantries supported by the Mulholland foundation, and any overflow produce will be donated to other pantries throughout the metropolitan area.

Brian Mulholland, chairman of the board and president of the Mulholland Family Foundation, urged students at the school to “find time to live the Gospel through service” and become active in the work of the cropbox.

Mulholland’s foundation – named after the late John S. Mulholland who worked for the FBI and was active during his lifetime in assisting the poor – collects food through donations and through purchases from the Capital Area Food Bank, SHARE and Giant supermarkets to assist already established, but under-stocked food pantries in Washington, D.C. It supports five city parish food pantries: at St. Thomas More, St. Luke, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Francis Xavier and Holy Name.

“It is not enough to merely provide our less fortunate neighbors with food. We have an obligation to provide healthy and nutritious food, avoiding easy fixes that can lead to chronic health issues,” Mulholland said. “We are incredibly excited to deliver fresh produce to our five community pantries and know that the response we will receive from the families we serve will be overflowing in gratitude.”

Danielle Mahaney Ballantine, director of communications for the school, pointed out that the project would not only provide fresh food to families in need, but would “expand the Holy Cross science curriculum in earth science and food sustainability, while continuing its long tradition of social justice.”

The cropbox project fits with Pope Francis’s emphasis that care for the poor and the environment are the special callings of all the faithful. In his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, the pope called “every person living on this planet” to demonstrate an “environmental responsibility” that would “directly and significantly affect the world around us.”

Highlighting “the intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet,” Pope Francis noted in his encyclical that “particular appreciation is owed to those who tirelessly seek to resolve the tragic effects of environmental degradation on the lives of the world’s poorest. “

Laudato Si’ (“Praise be to You”) takes its name from St. Francis of Assisi’s “Canticle of the Sun” in which the saintly friar praised God through His creation and the gifts of “Brother Sun,” “Sister Moon,” and “our sister, Mother Earth.” In the encyclical, the Holy Father stressed the need to respect and protect the “relationship existing between nature and the society which lives in it.”

Pope Francis, in his encyclical, encouraged projects such as the cropbox effort at the Academy of the Holy Cross.

“We must not think that these efforts are not going to change the world. They benefit society, often unbeknown to us, for they call forth a goodness which, albeit unseen, inevitably tends to spread,” he wrote. “Furthermore, such actions can restore our sense of self-esteem; they can enable us to live more fully and to feel that life on Earth is worthwhile.”

In response to the pope’s call for “comprehensive solutions” to address the damage done to the Earth, The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington developed a Laudato Si’ Action Plan. The plan outlines ways in which the archdiocese, parishes, schools and individuals can actively respond to Pope Francis’s call to “care for our common home.”

“This responds to the needs of the poor. This responds to the needs of the Earth,” Prebble said of her school’s cropbox effort.