Sharing extra grub
Gleaners broaden the meaning of “leftovers”
By Caroline Cummins
January 28, 2008
Food banks do great work. But as we’ve reported before, they’re getting squeezed in the donations department. Which is why gleaners — folks and organizations focused on sharing not just donated but leftover food, produce, and the like — are also necessary.
More than a decade ago, the New York Times reported on the growing role of organized gleaning groups, which shared leftover agricultural wealth with the hungry. Nationwide, many states and regions have formal gleaning nonprofits, sometimes called “food recovery organizations.”
Indiana, for example, has a group called simply Gleaners. Detroit has Forgotten Harvest and the Gleaners Community Food Bank. California has the Golden Empire Gleaners. And Washington state has the Gleaners Coalition, which has been working lately to help local farms devastated by recent floods.
The Slow Movement website offers tips on starting a local gleaning organization. An easy beginning? Picking up fallen fruit and sharing it with your neighbors.
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1. by Magpie on Jan 31, 2008 at 7:56 AM PST
While my family has always viewed gleaning as a great resource - windfall fruit get gathered for canned sauces, windfall nuts are easier to reach then climbing, and our birdfeeders are always full of field corn picked up behind the threashers, just a few way we utilize this concept - there ARE a few big barriers to using gleaning to help at foodbanks.
Most of the local banks around us will not accept anything that isn’t grocery store bought (one demands the reciept before they accept donations.). My mother was once taken to task by a shrilling hariden who lectured her on the two bushels of windfall apples we had brought in. “Just because people are struggling doesn’t mean we will serve them trash!”
We went home and canned 30 quarts of apples that WE ate. Homecanned isn’t accepted either. Neither is home frozen... and they just look blank if you offer dried fruit or veggies. (I guess they can’t figure out how to use it.)
Until folks can identify food as food when it doesn’t come plastic wrapped, I think this movement is going to struggle.
Good idea though.
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