Behind a light gray frame house in a quiet Saylorsburg neighborhood, a remarkable initiative has been steadily growing.

It is harvest time in the Garden of Giving. Ripe clusters of tomatoes sag from their vines, zucchinis swell under their big leaves, and buckets of produce go out to local food pantries every week.

Director Tammy Graeber started this 2½-acre garden 11 years ago on land left to her by her late parents. This year, the garden is celebrating its 10th year as a charitable organization.

“You have to look around and look at how much we’ve accomplished in 10 years,” Graeber said as she gave a tour of the garden Wednesday morning. “This was an empty piece of farmland.”

Graeber remembered how it all started.

“I was standing in the basement of the Supplemental Food Resource Center and I was taping boxes of pasta shut, putting dented cans on another table, expired goods on another table,” Graeber said. “And I was like, ‘are you kidding, this is what we’re feeding our families? There’s no nutrition here.’ ”

Graeber grew up on a beef farm in Missouri, and her family always kept a garden, so she knew what to do.

She is a full-time school bus driver and single mother of a 7-year-old son, but still finds time to devote 30-50 hours to the garden each week.

The tools, buildings and seedlings used in the garden are donated by local people and organizations, and the garden is run exclusively by volunteers. Volunteers spent 479 hours in the garden just in the month of August, and the garden still needs more help, Graeber said.

Last year, the garden donated over 12,800 pounds of vegetables and eggs to local food pantries. This year will be comparable with maybe an even greater yield of vegetables, Graeber said.

Unfortunately, there aren’t eggs this year, because a raccoon killed all but two of the garden’s 110 chickens. The raccoon has been trapped, but Graeber has not been able to replace the chickens yet.

Harriet Barone has volunteered at the garden for six years with her family. She emphasized the value of the education the garden provides volunteers, especially children. Her own children volunteer at the garden, and she has been involved with the Scout groups that volunteer.

“What I love about the garden is it’s the kind of project kids can really understand,” she said. “And when you tell kids, ‘you know, you’re really helping people that could be hungry, giving them really good, nutritious food that they can enjoy,’ it’s something they can really take pride in.”

Graeber gives the volunteers gardening tips and sometimes sends them home with seeds or printed resources so that they can start their own gardens, Barone said.

“Anytime anyone is there, it’s education,” she said.

Graeber has high hopes for the future.

Her wish list includes a pavilion for volunteers, vertical planters to save space, and a senior center with raised garden beds.

But the garden is in a critical financial position, because it has lost some funders, Graeber said. The garden needs to receive more funding before next spring.

“Without those funds, we can’t exist,” Graeber said.

The garden will be holding two fundraisers in the next few weeks:

• Chef Mike Abate of the Pocono Supper Club is organizing a dinner celebrating the garden’s 10-year anniversary, which will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Sept. 14. It will be a gourmet five-course meal served in the garden with live music. Twenty tickets are still available at $80 per ticket. They can be reserved at www. thegardenofgiving.org.

• The garden will also hold a concert at First Presbyterian Church in Stroudsburg at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 6. Tickets are $20 at the door and free for children, with a discount for seniors and students. The performers will mostly be professionals and students from the Pocono area.