"Pecha Kucha Night, now in over 700 cities, was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public" (www.pechakucha.org).
This has now become a widespread format for communities to engage in social, fun and informative nights welcoming different people with many interests.
This is how the Gleaning Initiative's Pecha Kucha went:
1. Imagine sitting at an incredibly bountiful table
filled with good, healthy, and safe
food. Imagine denying hungry people a seat at that table. Imagine, if you
can possibly manage, that we then take half of that bounty on that table and just
throw it away, right in front of these hungry neighbors. Unfortunately this is
not a bad dream, it is very real right here in Downeast Maine!
2.
You might recognize this painting by Lhermitte: “The
Gleaners”… a bucolic image of people coming in after the harvest to hand pick what
was missed by machines. In the Old Testament gleaning shows up as a mandate of
the church for farmers to leave the four corners of their fields unharvested to
allow the less fortunate to come through and glean. The bible mentions Ruth the
gleaner. You might say I am Hannah the gleaner.
3. The tradition of gleaning, however, is not merely
ancient, it is in fact quite contemporary as well. I ran into this couple in
Barcelona Spain at an outdoor community meal, and this gentleman started
talking to me. As a boy, he would go out after the almond harvest, where they
used the tree shaking technique. He would collect whatever had been left behind
and sell it to an old man in the village who was home-bound.
4. Gleaning is about not letting food nor people fall
through the cracks. It is about creating a safety net, about taking out our old
blueberry rakes, our old traditions, and going out to make sure we are putting
food that we all pay for, with resources and money, and that we all waste, back
on the table to support those who are experiencing times of need.
5. This is chard from the Jackson Lab Wellness
Program garden, part of University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s Maine Harvest
for Hunger program. All gardeners are welcome to participate in this program growing
an extra row in their backyard to feed those in our community who are
experiencing hunger. We are also exploring ways to introduce nutritious foods
such as chard into the diets of those who may not always know how to use it.
6. Why does food go to waste? One reason is cosmetics.
It’s not perfect. It’s not pretty. It doesn’t “look good”. Farmers can’t sell
it. My grandmother sent me a quote the other day, the title of which read
“perfection is the enemy of good”. The Gleaning Initiative works for the common
good, to get high quality food such as this imperfect apple to someone who
can’t afford it in the store.
7. Our focus is on farms because in this way we are
able to complement the work of other partners and focus on increasing the
amount of high quality fresh, local produce that reaches pantries and community
meal sites. We work alongside other programs like Good Shepherd Food Bank’s “Mainers
Feeding Mainers” to build lasting relationships between food pantries and
community meal sites and their local farms.
8. Because a lot of the food that is redistributed
to food security organizations is surplus food from the industry, such as
canned goods, processed food, and high starch products, these are not always
the healthiest options, nor do they meet some of the diet restrictions of the community
members we are trying to serve. A lot of people are searching for access to
more fruits and vegetables, and gleaning is another way for community members
to access this directly.
9.
Volunteerism is essential to the well-being of
our community. For decades food pantries in Hancock County have been serving
our community with free food, again surplus from our food industry. But if we
are going to serve seconds to struggling sectors of our community, they might
as well be the best quality, most nutritious seconds from our very own local farms.
10. Here we have King Hill Farm’s Amanda Provencher
explaining to volunteers how to harvest… The Gleaning Initiative brings a new
form of volunteerism to our community, keeping an aging population active and
bringing people who might not otherwise make it out to a local farm into a healthy
active environment. They experience a new form of community service that is as
fulfilling to the gleaner as it is to the farmer and the recipient of food.
11. Homeschooling
and working with schools through the Gleaning Initiative can provide an outdoor
education opportunity for kids who might have trouble following the traditional
model of education. It is an alternative way to understanding the circle of
life, nutrient cycles, recycling, and experiencing food first hand. There’s
plenty of research about how these types of experiences affect young people’s willingness
to eat vegetables and fruit.
12.
The Cooperative Extension’s Maine Harvest for
Hunger program, under which the Gleaning Initiative was created, in partnership
with Healthy Acadia, is currently partnering with Garden Clubs, Home Growers, and Community Gardnes, to help support the efforts of
the food security organizations in Hancock County. The Jackson Lab community garden delivered
600 pounds of food to us last season, all done through their Wellness Program’s
employee garden.
13. Building work exchange opportunities out of the
Gleaning Initiative is key to providing some of our unemployed community
members with an opportunity to engage in fulfilling their own needs. But it is
important to remember that a lot of the people we are serving through the food
pantry and community mealsites are actually working more hours than many will
ever work to make ends meet. They don’t always have the time!
14.
A subsidized CSA program where people paid $5 to
fill their bag with organic locally produced vegetables was a hit last year as
pantry patrons experienced top-quality food at reduced prices. They could either pay
in advance the $50 that got them $200 worth of vegetables, or they could use
the pay as you go system. Farmers and community members were thrilled to be a
part of this program, and we hope to follow-up with a new program this Fall 2014.
15. It is important for the Gleaning Initiative to
have a back up to deal with the inevitable food that might, despite our
efforts, not be able to reach people. We need to compost and we need to feed pigs! This is why we
are, together with David’s Folly Farm and the Tree of Life, spearheading a
project to have community members help us to buy local farm livestock products
for the pantry. The Gleaning Initiative will find ways to feed these pigs food that would otherwise be wasted and in that way attempt to off-set the cost of grain.
16. LeanPath Technology is changing the game of food
waste prevention by providing a system that tracks food waste as it is produced
in kitchens of hospitals, universities, schools, hotels and restaurants. By
knowing and measuring what we waste we can better manage and categorize the
waste streams either by source or by destination, strategically placing each
waste product to become a resource rather than a cost.
17. Just like Steve Jobs revolutionized our culture
with Apple products, innovative programs like LeanPath can revolutionize our
culture with food waste prevention technologies that drive behavior of
employees in the food industry. Together we can build a labor force that is aware,
careful and curious about the collective ways in which we can mitigate the negative impact of food waste on our economy, ecology and social equity.
18. Our supermarkets are up against a difficult task
to provide us with the convenience, abundance and variety that we are now
trained to expect when we embark on our shopping experiences. They know and
dislike more than anyone the amount of food wasted in their stores. Our
Hannafords and Shaws are major supporters of Good Shepherd Food Bank and local
food security sites, and yet food still goes to waste every day despite
successful gleaning. We are working to improve our systems!
19. Our Farmers’ Markets are also producing food
waste. There are many things farmers do with this waste, but they are happy
when they can give it to an organization that will ensure the quality is upheld
and that it gets to community members who can’t otherwise access such food. We are also supporting farmers by tracking their surplus, and helping them place their
products in alternative markets when possible.
20. Our next step is to build a food processing
network to take on the products that we are having a hard time placing and turn
them into meals and value-added opportunities. Now imagine a local culinary job
training program for at-risk students and adults whose work becomes a social
catering business for home-bound community members, seniors suffering from
chronic illnesses and families experiencing forms of poverty. This is a dream, let’s make it real!
Thanks to the Stonington Opera House for a great event!
