Easter Sunday kicked off gardening season for one community in State College and they’re putting their green thumb to the test, for a good cause.

Behind the Mount Nittany United Methodist Church, you’ll find the Giving Garden, a place where volunteers plant produce for any one in need.

Joanna and Bob Jones started the project in 2014 and say it’s intended to be a stress free resource.

“You can pull over park on the street and come over and pick whatever they can use in a day and take it home and no one thinks that that’s odd that you’re here in the garden picking things, and that’s sort of the whole point is to make it with out any sort of conditions at all,” Joanna said.

From asparagus, to lettuce and radishes, they plant things that are a crowd favorite or tend to be pricey in stores.

Last year they gave away over 1,000 pounds worth of food.

“It was really simple. I think sometimes we over-think projects and we try to make them really complicated. My husband is really fond of saying it’s just dirt in a box,” Joanna said.

“I mean that’s kind of our motto, it’s no more complicated than that. Try it out. Put dirt in a box, put seeds in and learn from how you’re doing it,” Bob said.

The garden gets other groups in the community involved as well.

Eagle Scouts helped build compost bins and the information booth in front.

“We have had people help us all along the way and we’re able to provide an awful lot of food for people and it’s fun in the mean time,” Joanna said.

The couple hopes the Giving Garden concept sprouts in other regions.

“One of our goals is to have other groups, other churches do this wherever we can,” Bob said.

“If everyone did that we wouldn’t have anyone who was hungry at all and it’s really just not very difficult to do,” Joanna said.