Owed to Interns

When you two spectacular ladies were introduced to gleaning for the first time this Spring, I had no idea you would become the essential part of the Hancock County Gleaning Initiative's 2015 season that you are. Without you out there gleaning this season there would have been three times less food, sometimes it would not have happened, it certainly would not have been so fun, and there would certainly be fewer gleaning girl jokes, #getitgirl. And not to mention the amazing vegetable rhymes we all came up with. I saw laughter and I saw tears, but who I really saw was you my dears!

 

The following was written by special guest blogger, Katrina Fennelly, who spent her summer break from college interning with Healthy Acadia’s Gleaning and Healthy General Stores Initiatives.

Spinach Revisited

Exactly two years ago to this day I fumbled my way through a row of spinach at Four Season Farm, getting a grand total of 8lbs of spinach, most of which got taken to the Emmaus Center in Ellsworth. Eliot Coleman set me up with a knife and some plastic bags and showed me what to do. I filled two bags and quit; honestly it felt a little strange. I remember using the spinach to bribe my first volunteers, giving a bag of spinach to anyone at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension 2013 Plant Sale who would sign up to be a gleaner.

This Spring 2015 we have exceeded our spinach gleaning expectations and increased by 50 times the amount gleaned in 2013. With crates, and harvesting knives, a lot more experience and 5 powerful volunteers (Kristin Witting, Paula Mrozicki, Little D, Christina Fortin and Katrina Fennelly) we gleaned 25 crates of spinach, were able to distribute 450lbs (4500 servings) to 10 food pantries and meal sites, reaching over 1,000 families in Hancock County through the following food security organizations: Simmering Pot Community Meal and Tree of Life Food Pantry in Blue Hill, Bucksport Community Concerns Food Pantry, H.O.M.E Co-op in Orland, Dinner is Served and Island Pantry in Deer Isle & Stonington, The Welcome Table, Emmaus Center and Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry in Ellsworth, and the Bar Harbor Food Pantry. All pantries and community meal sites that were open last week were contacted, others who were not open were not contacted; more will come. Thank you all for the amazing work you do to address food security in Hancock County. Contact your local food pantry by going to Healthy Acadia's website - http://www.healthyacadia.org/initiatives/documents/ExtensionHAFSO11_19_2014.pdf

Healthy Acadia and UMaine Cooperative Extension's Gleaning Initiative serves over 30 food security organizations in Hancock and Washington counties. Please be in touch for more information at hannah@healthyacadia.org / (207) 667 7171

NOTE: The pictures below were taken and provided by Brendan Bullock, a photographer who is working on a collaborative project commissioned by the Mainers Feeding Mainers Program of Good Shepherd Food Bank, and Maine Farmland Trust, documenting food access projects in Maine.

The Apple Story

October 17th, 36 volunteers gleaned at Johnston's Orchard.

We got 5,235lbs of apples from Johnston's...

...and 150L of Cider from Joe Tracy's community cider pressing.

Joe Tracy's apples go from his truck into a bleach solution;

a mechanized grinder pulverizes the apples;

buckets of apple mix getting dumped into the cider press...

(Joe Tracy's custom made cider press)

...and finally "the twist" produces the juice.

Stay tuned for plans to grow this five year tradition of apple gleaning and processing into an event for the community at large in 2015. The more apple varieties the better the cider, and certainly meal sites can best be served with a healthy drink already made than too many apples in their limited storage.

This year we distributed 5,000lbs of apples to pantries and 60L of cider to meal sites. 

Thank you gleaners and community members for making this possible.

Happy Holidays to all, see you in 2015!

Hannah & The Gleaning Team

Making History: Gleaning for Community Development

The U.S. Department of Economic and Community Development says:

"CONGRATULATIONS to the State of Maine Department of Economic and Community Development for being awarded the 2014 COSCDA Sterling Achievement Award for Community Development for the Hancock County Gleaning Initiative" (DECD).

The Maine Department of Economic and Community Development sponsored the Community Development Block Grant that enabled Healthy Acadia and UMaine Cooperative Extension to launch the Gleaning Initiative in 2012. The award was presented at the Annual Training Conference at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, and was bestowed during the Presidential Reception and Award Recognition Ceremony on Tuesday, September 16, 2014 at the Boston Public Library. It was a small and beautiful event.

This might be the first time that gleaning efforts have been officially recognized nationally as an award-winning strategy for community development. However, gleaning has been on the national agenda before. Dan Glickman served as the United States Secretary of Agriculture from 1995 to 2001. Under the Clinton Administration, Glickman promoted Gleaning and Food Recovery by organizing conferences, passing The Good Samaritan Food Donations Act, and building a national network of gleaning organizations. We could probably trace a relationship between these national efforts and the success of Maine's Good Shepherd Food Bank food redistribution programs, as well as claim that the University of Maine Cooperative Extension put gleaning on their agenda as a product of these efforts. 

Should gleaning be national policy for hunger relief? If stripped of all its community-building, educational, and other value-added aspects, is gleaning, strictly economically speaking, worthwhile? (or sustainable?)
Some of the other gleaning organizations in New England such as the Boston Area Gleaners calculate the input-output ratio for each of their gleaning opportunities to decide whether or not to make the investment. There are overhead, gas, wear and tear on vehicles, time and effort, sorting and distribution costs, as well as a myriad of transaction costs to consider for gleaning opportunity; are those costs off-set by the pounds of food going to hungry people? Are we using speculative market prices to define value here?

Strategic management theory, based on economic decisions about the worth of any given gleaning opportunity, is one angle from which to consider the return on investment of gleaning. But in terms of what each gleaning opportunity produces, to put it in economic terms, there is a social and environmental return on investment (SROI and EROI) that needs to be measured first. I would even put my neck out to say that there is an emotional return on investment when the hopeful nature of gleaning raises the spirits of local farmers, pantry volunteers, non-profit organizers, policy makers, and the families of those who bring home fresh vegetables gleaned especially for them and/or by them, at the end of the day. 

I believe gleaning can make it back onto the national agenda, not only as a food waste prevention effort but also as a recognized award-winning community development strategy that puts the social, environmental and economic return on investment on an equal playing field.