The Glean Team

What is Gleaning?
Gleaning is collecting excess fresh foods from farms, gardens, farmers markets, grocers and restaurants that would otherwise go to waste for those in need in our community. In collaboration with the Rondout Valley Growers Association’s Farm to Food Pantry Program and Family of Woodstock, UlsterCorps volunteers help out with weekly gleanings at local farms throughout the growing season. Help out every week (typically Mondays from June through October) or whenever you can.

Why Glean?
Food insecurity is the USDA’s measure of lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods.
Approximately 20,000 people in Ulster County are food insecure, including 6,500 children. Food waste in the United States is estimated at roughly between 30 to 40 percent of the food supply. At a time when one in six Americans lacks a secure supply of food to their tables, reducing food losses by just 15 percent would be enough food to feed more than 25 million Americans every year.

Processing
Volunteers are also needed to assist with regular processing events organized collaboratively with the Rondout Valley Growers Association’s Farm to Food Pantry Program and Family of Woodstock in certified community kitchens preparing and freezing local produce like corn, peppers and broccoli, making apple sauce and tomato sauce. This enables us to continue to distribute local produce to Ulster County food pantries, shelters and feeding programs throughout the winter months. Help out every week (typically Wednesdays from mid-August through October) or whenever you can.

How You Can Help:

• Harvest fresh produce donated by local farms (gleaning)
• Pick up and distribute produce to our community’s food pantries, shelters and feeding programs
• Help with processing produce so that it can be frozen and distributed throughout the winter
• Help out long-term at your local food pantry
• Help prepare & deliver meals to the homebound
• Donate produce from your farm or garden directly to your local food pantry, or call us for help with distribution
• Purchase a share from your local CSA to be donated to your local food pantry

Join our Glean Team and be a part of this fun and rewarding project! Email glean@ulstercorps.org to sign up or call us at (845) 481-0331.

Thank you so much to our incredibly generous local farmers, to the Hudson Valley Farm Hub, Rondout Valley CSD and Community Action for allowing us use of your kitchens for processing; to RVGA and Family of Woodstock for your leadership of this beautiful collaboration; to the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, the NoVo Foundation, Carve for a Cause and TD Charitable Foundation for your support; and to our awesome Glean Team volunteers!!