This is the last week of voting for the Skinny Pancake’s $500 Community Gardening Grant, and scrappy Hinesburg Community School is leading the pack with nearly one-sixth of all votes cast.

The grant aims to seed a food project in Washington or Chittenden county. At press time, 19 projects were competing, including the Essex Town School District Community Garden; Crops by Kids, a community garden in Barre; and an APPLE Corps project to plant blueberries on the Statehouse lawn.

The Hinesburg Community School Vegetable Garden’s project is called “Nutrition Improvement: Turn Brown to Green.” Organizers hope the grant will help fund a school garden to supply the cafeteria with vegetables throughout the school year.

Skinny Pancake co-owner Benjy Adler says so many people have voted — 2800 by early this week — that he plans to offer the grant “at least [twice a year], and possibly three times a year.” He is rooting for his own favorite competitor, he says, but won’t reveal which it is.

To read about the competitors and cast a vote, go to skinnypancakegrant.wowcrowd.com. The grant will be awarded on May 1.

This article appears in Apr 27 – May 3, 2011.

Corin Hirsch was a Seven Days food writer 2011 through 2016. She was also a dining critic and drinks columnist at Newsday from 2017 to 2022, and contributes to The Guardian, Wine Enthusiast and other publications. She’s spoken often on colonial era drinking and is the author of Forgotten Drinks of Colonial New England, published by History Press in 2014.