Serving the Community 🍎🥦🍞
Discover the transformative power of gleaning, sustainable food practices, and ice cream.
Every Thursday, as the sun rises, my day of community service begins. I pick up a fellow volunteer, and together, we set out on our weekly trip to the Clackamas Gleaners. Our purpose is pure, to bring healthy food to people in need in our community served by the Bethlehem House of Bread Food Pantry.
We arrive early and wait for our assigned number. If luck is on our side, we’re number 1 in line, the first to enter the warehouse filled with nourishing food. We load up our cart to full capacity as high as possible balancing the boxes and crates with fresh fruits and vegetables, loaves of bread, crisp peppers, succulent pears, vibrant lettuce, earthy beets, and more. Each item we place in our cart is a promise of a meal for someone in need.
During summer and fall, our cart overflows with even more fresh produce, generously donated from the abundance of local farms and farmer’s markets.
What is Gleaning? 🌽🥕🍞🍊
“To glean” means “to gather what was left by the reapers.” Historically, the “reapers” planted and harvested the main crops. The “gleaners” followed behind and collected leftover crops that the reapers left behind or didn’t want. It is a practice described in the Bible that became a legally enforced entitlement of the poor.1
Gleaning now extends beyond harvesting extra crops; it’s about building communities, reducing food waste, and ensuring nutritious food reaches our hungry neighbors. In a country where 41 million people go hungry daily, and 10 million tons of quality produce go to waste annually, gleaning bridges the gap between abundance and need.
You can learn more and volunteer with a local gleaning organization in your community such as the Portland Fruit Tree Project. You can help pick the fruit or share it from the trees growing in your garden.
The Gathering of Gleaners in Seattle 🌱🌎🍎
This week, I had the opportunity to attend the 2024 International Gleaning Symposium in Seattle, Washington, a gathering of passionate individuals committed to sustainable food practices. This remarkable event brought together gleaners, farmers, educators, and community leaders nationwide with presentations, field trips, and best practices shared to combat food waste and address food insecurity.
This conference is part of a larger effort of our association to grow the gleaning movement to improve and increase the nutritional value of food accessible to our most vulnerable community members. We are strongest when we work together and share knowledge and resources freely.
Salt & Straw: Ice Cream with a Mission 🍦
I am a passionate advocate for food security and volunteer with gleaning and food bank organizations like Bethlehem House of Bread, Portland Fruit Tree Project, and Gleaners of Clackamas County, Inc. Spread the word, share healthy and delicious fresh food, and let’s create a world where no one goes hungry.
And speaking of deliciousness, have you tried Salt & Straw’s Upcycled Food Series?
They’re turning food surplus into extraordinary ice cream flavors! Last year, they became the first restaurant to serve a menu certified upcycled by the Upcycled Food Association (UFA). Upcycled foods use ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to human consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable supply chains, and have a positive impact on the environment.
Salted Caramel Chocolate Brownies: A vegan delight! Made with okara flour from soy milk production, these moist chocolate brownies are generously frosted with rich caramel and folded into a sweet bed of oat milk.
Chocolate Caramel Potato Chip Banana Bread: Forget ordinary banana bread! Urban Gleaners rescues bananas from local stores, roasts them in honey and spices, and combines them with “Uglies” potato chips for an irresistible ice cream.
https://www.almanac.com/beauty-gleaning