Hello Gleaners,
Our newest staff member and our brand new gleaning van couldn't have come at a better time! We are currently running at least 1 gleaning trip every day of the week thanks to these improvements. Dylan Frazier, our Seasonal Gleaning Coordinator, hit the ground running this past Sunday with his first solo trip, gleaning over 2,100 pounds of tomatoes at Kimball Fruit Farm. And the new van, which has twice the carrying capacity, has been absolutely vital in ensuring that we harvest as much as possible from the fields. So far this growing season, we have gleaned nearly 35,000 pounds of fresh produce from 17 different local farms. That is equal to nearly 140,000 4-ounce servings! So far in August, we have gleaned and donated 17,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables, which is compared to only 4,300 pounds in August of 2013. Hopefully this trend continues!
The large poundage we gleaned in August can be attributed to new relationships with larger farms, as well as solidified relationships with older partner farms. Right now, the big crops for us are corn (thanks to Marini Farm in Ipswich), tomatoes, some greens, and even some apples (an early -but delicious - variety, Jersey Mac allowed us one large glean in Topsfield).
This is the beginning of our busiest season, so if you are looking for a time to help out, now is the time to start paying attention to those Gleaning Trip Alerts flooding your inbox!
To the Harvest!
Matt Crawford
Gleaning Coordinator