The Gleaning Project:           Helping Harvest

 

•Providing healthy, local food to those in need

•Harvesting excess produce from area farms

•Educating youth and community members about hunger, food security, and agriculture

Gleaning is the gathering of produce after harvest. Farmers cannot always sell all of their produce, either because it is imperfect (too small, slight blemishes), or because they simply cannot harvest all of it.  Gleaned produce may have already been picked but will not sell or it might be left in the fields and can be picked by volunteers.

The Gleaning Project’s primary goal is to collect produce in the Pioneer Valley and donate it to shelters and food pantries in the Greater Springfield area.

Our first year of the Gleaning with Gladness program has been a wonderful success!  We gathered over 5,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables that would have otherwise gone to waste and donated them to 10 agencies in Springfield, Holyoke, Northampton, and Amherst.  Thankfully, there were several area farms and orchards that were happy to donate excess vegetables and fruits that they would not pick either because they were finished with them or they had slight imperfections. Many farmers donated produce simply out of kindness. 


Rachel’s Table received grants from the B’nai Tzedek Youth Foundation and the George and Irene Davis Foundation to pay for  school buses to transport youth groups to area farms and then to food donation agencies.  The grants also funded the other basic needs of the project.

Made on a Mac

“When are we coming again?” asked a first grader from Martin Luther King Jr Charter School in Springfield as the bus pulled away from the orchard where they had picked.

“I was thinking about how much we actually helped; I mean, how much did we get, 800 pounds?” 

One chaperone remarked how gleaning is a great way to do Tikkun Olam – to help heal the world.