For two years before moving to the Boston area, Sarah Bither, 27, lived in Japan where she taught English and soaked up the local ethic.
 
“They’re very against waste. You use everything. You don’t throw anything away,” she said with admiration. “And also, they don’t really do prepared foods: everything is fresh.”
 
So when Bither, a product manager for a financial tech start-up, relocated here she began looking around for like-minded people, and that’s when she first learned about BAG—at an expo on volunteer opportunities. As she was about to leave, empty-handed, something caught her eye.
 
“The gleaners had this great sign…about food,” said Bither. And the next thing she knew a man at the table was telling her all about how much food gets thrown out each year and what BAG does to tackle the problem of waste in a hungry world.
 
“I thought that was absolutely fantastic,” said Bither, who has been a committed BAG volunteer ever since. “It is not a supply problem. It’s a distribution problem.”
 
She found the stats staggering: “They rescued like 500,000 pounds just from farms within a one-hour drive radius from Boston…This is the stuff you would pay an arm and a leg for in Whole Foods.”
 
Now an evangelist for the cause and in her third season of gleaning, Bither tells everyone she can about BAG. “I love talking about the gleaners,” she said.
 
For busy people who want to help tackle hunger, but don’t have a lot of time, BAG makes it very easy to head to the fields for a few hours of harvesting with other volunteers.
 
“They send out one email a week that lists all of the trips in all of the locations, all the times, and all the crops, and if it suits your schedule, you can pick one, you can pick several,” said Bither. “It’s super low-commitment. No spam.”
 
Her first trip was a bean-picking expedition—a good one to start with as the beans were growing in such abundance that harvesting them was not much harder than sitting in a circle with other volunteers and filling boxes, said Bither.
 
“If you’re digging potatoes with a shovel, that’s more intensive,” she added. But trip leaders are attentive to everyone’s energy levels, and if team members start to get tired, the leaders will find something else for them to do, said Bither.
 
Since she doesn’t have a car, Bither, who lives in Somerville, depends on others to give her a ride to the fields—a challenge she knows some fellow gleaners are facing was well.
 
But Bither has found a way around that hurdle. Having made friends with other volunteers, she just sends her buddies texts, finds out who’s going on which trips, and catches rides with them.
 
Aware of the car issue, BAG recently created a Facebook group where volunteers can self-organize carpools. Additionally, enough people have offered to drive that BAG is now able to offer carpools on about one out of every four or five trips it organizes. When volunteers sign up, they can look for the trips with carpools. 
 
 
 
 

It’s hard to believe how fast the past 10 weeks have flown by.  Each day is different at Boston Area Gleaners, and, as I look back, I realize that the work is driven by nature – the changing seasons, the daily weather, the maturation of various crops, the “shelf life” of different vegetables.

My name is Sandro Carboni, and I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to intern with this amazing organization.  I am a rising senior at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, where I’m majoring in Environmental Studies.  My college is in Geneva, NY on Lake Seneca.  A sizable percentage of Geneva-area residents suffer from food insecurity, and I have become acutely aware of – and interested in – this issue through coursework and community involvement.  My experience with Boston Area Gleaners has taught me so much about the food ecosystem and about what people – farmers, volunteers and non-profits – can do to help.

During this past summer, I had the opportunity to work in all aspects of the Gleaners and I learned so much about the way in which the pieces all fit together.  On some days, I went on gleaning trips and was able to meet fun and generous volunteers.  I learned a ton from Jack and the team about various vegetables. I really enjoyed being out in the sun getting to know some of the area’s beautiful small farms.  On other days, I worked with Matt to organize our gleaned produce and assisted in distributing it around the surrounding area. It is an amazing feeling to deliver bushels of carrots and radishes to pantries, shelters and food banks, knowing that people will have something fresh and healthy to eat.

  It is hard to visualize our ecosystem – Where are the farms that have produce for us to glean?  Who/Where are the volunteers in relation to the farms?  Where are the recipient agencies in relation to each another so that we can plan our delivery routes?  With this in mind, my main project was focused on analyzing data that the team currently relies on to manage information regarding farms, volunteers and agencies.  I assisted in cleaning up the existing data and then looked at challenges facing the team.  I researched visualization software tools and chose one to experiment with (i.e. Espatial).  I am hoping that this tool will help the team to replace some manual tasks with automation to keep improving the ability to distribute food from farms to families.

I am going back to college with a real connection to this organization, its people and its mission.  It has been an amazing feeling to deliver banana boxes full of beautiful fruits and vegetables and to know that this food will be enjoyed by families rather than left in the fields.  I am eager to use what I have learned here to help a current gleaning nonprofit in Geneva. 

I couldn’t have imagined a better summer and I’m excited to see how Boston Area Gleaners continues to grow. 

By Sandro Carboni,
2018 Forest Foundation Summer Intern

Together with all our volunteers and supporters, we are committed to harvesting all we can from local fields to share with hunger relief agencies. Last year alone we rescued over 600,000 pounds of produce! That would fill about 40,000 grocery bags. All that healthy food went to dozens of hunger relief agencies in Massachusetts, New Hampshire & Rhode Island.

​

For more information about how gleaning can fight food waste and learn about other organizations like ours around the country, check out this article:
​https://foodtank.com/news/2017/11/gleaning-fighting-food-waste/

By Izzy Gray, Summer Intern

One of my favorite parts of my internship with Boston Area Gleaners has been heading out into the fields to witness the day-to-day operations of the gleaning program. Each time I go gleaning, I am consistently amazed by the energy and dedication of the volunteers. They keep the organization running and, with their help, we were able to harvest 421,167 pounds of fresh veggies in 2016.
 
Our volunteers come from diverse backgrounds and have various motivations for gleaning. This summer I have had the pleasure of talking with a number of our most dedicated volunteers about why they volunteer with The Gleaners. Across the board, our volunteers clearly enjoy the combination of being outside and doing meaningful work for their community.

Pamela Herndon explained that volunteering “is a beautiful way to get out into nature and interact with food in its natural state. […] With a simple sacrifice of a few hours of free time, a volunteer can bring fresh, nutritious food to those who are hungry.”

Sally Thompson commented on the reward of performing a direct service to people in need: “I was on my hands and knees with other like minded volunteers harvesting food which would be provided to those in need. And I was involved in a process that reduced food waste. The personal reward is immense for me.”
 
For some, the urge to fight hunger is deeply personal. Jonathan Pilch explained how his experiences growing up inspired him to give back: “I'm only 29 years old right now, so my memories of having to travel to our local food pantry in my hometown of Lynn, MA are still fresh in my memory. We didn't have a ton of money lying around when I was kid, so we were forced to rely on the pantry from time to time. It's because of those who donated to our local food pantry that I get encouraged to help pay it forward.”
 
Gleaning can also be a great way to bring together friends, families, and co-workers. Brad Tomlinson notes, “Anyone interested in volunteering should understand that it is hard work under sometimes less than ideal combinations of weather and field conditions. While there is a lot of bending, kneeling, squatting, lifting, and walking involved, there is no pressure on volunteers to do more than they can handle; therefore, there is no reason for a healthy person of any age not to give it a try! Volunteers should know that their safety and condition are important to the gleaning coordinators.”
 
Last year we had 310 volunteers. Boston Area Gleaners depends on these passionate and dedicated individuals to grow and expand its networks of farms and recipient agencies. Next time you find yourself with some free time on your hands, grab a friend (or two!) and head out into the fields to enjoy a few hours outside while making a positive impact on your community.

​Hey, all!
 
Before starting my internship, I knew a little bit about gleaning and was excited by its potential to address two huge local issues: food waste and food insecurity. It’s now been five weeks since I started my internship and I’ve had the opportunity to speak with farmers, volunteers, distribution agency managers, and recipients of gleaned produce to gather testimonials about how they benefit from the Gleaners’ work.  Talking with such a diverse group of stakeholders has truly confirmed the importance and effectiveness of the gleaning process.
 
A farmer I spoke to on my first gleaning trip explained to me that participating in gleaning is not just the right thing to do but also a huge help to his farm. If we hadn’t come to harvest the extra rows of lettuce he had set aside for us, the gorgeous greens would have either been left to rot or he would have had to pay someone to pick them. Speaking with this farmer helped me understand that gleaning is both a means to reduce hunger and food waste and a service that that can help local farmers save time and money.
 
My main focus this summer has been talking to the managers of food pantries and other hunger relief organizations that the Gleaners work with. Many of the managers I’ve talked to have emphasized that gleaned produce helps them ensure that they aren’t just providing calories, but good healthy food. Sharon Patton, the operations manager at the Arlington Food Pantry, explained how gleaned produce helps the pantry offer its clients healthier options: “One thing we have been trying to do as an organization is move away from packaged and processed food towards more fresh and frozen produce. Gleaning is a huge help with that. We are always so excited when the gleaning season starts. It lets us off better, fresher food.”

​I’ve also been making an effort to volunteer with the distribution agencies we work with to learn more about these organizations and how fresh produce benefits the populations they serve. At the first pantry I volunteered at, I helped hand out produce to over 60 families and had an opportunity speak directly with many clients of the pantry. One client remarked, “The produce is always what I’m most excited about. You wouldn’t believe the delicacies I make with this stuff!” Another told me that the veggies she picked up would make it a lot easier for her to pack healthy lunches for her kids.
 
The benefits of gleaning can be identified at each step in the process. Learning more about the Gleaners’ work from such a wide range of perspectives has reaffirmed for me that everyone really does win with gleaning. I’m excited to continue gathering testimonials about the Gleaners’ work as the season takes off. I’m also working on a video project to illustrate the journey of gleaned produce.

I look forward to meeting more of our awesome volunteer base out in the fields this summer. Happy gleaning!

Hi gleaners!
 
My name is Izzy Gray and I am excited to be interning with Boston Area Gleaners this summer. I am a huge fan of BAG’s work and can’t wait for the gleaning season to take off!
 
A little about me- I was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts and graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in 2016. I just finished my first year at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine where I study Environmental Studies, Government, and Sociology. I am interested in learning more about food systems and the intersection of socioeconomic status and health.
 
My family has always valued healthy, local food and has been part of a CSA at Lindentree Farm for over a decade. Some of my fondest memories from growing up include picking berries and peas with my mom and playing around the fields at Lindentree. I became interested in issues of food waste and food insecurity in high school through my involvement with the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter and my school’s Environmental Action Club. I love the Boston area and feel strongly about helping to make it a healthier and more equitable community. I am thrilled to be involved with BAG’s efforts to reduce food waste and make local produce more accessible to all families in the Boston Area.
 
This summer I am going to be working on a project interviewing farmers, volunteers, distribution organization managers, and recipients of produce about how they benefit from the gleaning process. I’ll also be helping out with gleaning and distribution, so look out for me on gleaning trips this summer!

​Hello, All. Gleaning Program Manager Dylan Frazier here.
 
Gleaning revolves around supply and demand, and the most important factor is time. My general philosophy about gleaning is probably more crude and unsophisticated than you may think. Our goal is to glean as much high quality produce as possible. As long as the quality is good we hustle after it until the truck is full or we run out of daylight. This attitude is a bit old school, but effective. It has earned farmers’ respect and has allowed us to grow our organization. Even though we are aggressively gleaning as much as possible, we only capture 5% of the farm level surplus in our eastern MA region each year. In 2016, we gleaned 421,167 pounds (about 12,000 bushels).

I should note that we devote extra resources and time to new farms with high donation potential by working through sub par crops so that we can establish a  good relationship with them.  Some farmers are better than others and some farmers specialize in certain crops. Not every farm is worth our time, so we are prudent about where we devote extra effort and resources. I believe in complex reciprocity, which means I will do a favor or an act of endearment for a farmer under the belief there is a bigger payoff in the long run. This builds respect, trust and strong working relationships.

The other shoe to drop in this equation is demand. Some crops like potatoes and apples are in high demand and we can move infinite volumes; others like arugula and blue Hubbard squash are in lower demand, which poses bigger distribution challenges. This can be a limiting factor. For example, if I bring back eight continuous truckloads of arugula with no other crops, we would be stuck with most of it and our distribution manager would no doubt kill me. So we try to harvest as much variety as possible, because we can slip in a few cases of arugula on each order of peaches and carrots.
 
Pantries have grown to rely on our services for a consistent variety of fresh produce. We deliver weekly or bi-weekly to most of our pantries. From experience, we know roughly how much arugula we can collectively move in a week and how much we can move through each channel; this tends to roughly guide for how much we harvest. We have standardized our harvesting practices, using banana boxes which allow for uniform of crop packing and easy palletization. We also know how much a case of potatoes weighs and can thus estimate crop volumes for each harvest (pounds and bushels). 
 
Regarding which crops to harvest, I often make on-the-fly judgments when arriving at the farm. Last season, we ran trips 6-7 days per week, with as many as 4 trips per day. Each day and farm is different and there is no single metric used to determine which crops we will be harvesting. Nutrition or dietary preferences is not something we judge or try to impose on recipients. It is nearly impossible to develop an algorithm for gleaning because there are many factors at play and the context if the situation is very fluid. I didn’t appreciate the complexity and nuance of our decision making process until trying to train a new staff member to make these decisions last season. Ultimately we "read and react" to the situation. Often, all (if not most) of the following criteria factor into the decision process about which crops to harvest:
 
1. Demand. How popular is this cop? If the crop has marginal appeal, which channels want it and in what volumes?
 
2. Current inventory. How many of each crop do we have on the truck or in our cooler? Do our recipient agencies have a full inventory, can they take more? Do they want more?
 
3. Inventory pipeline. How many more tomatoes do I expect to be rolling in over the next week? In our business, when it rains, it pours (i.e. all the tomatoes come at once). Is it hard to find tomatoes right now for donation (shoulder seasons)?
 
4. Relative quality of each crop. Can I get higher quality at a different farm in the same week? How long will the quality be maintained in the field? Pest pressure, temperature, and crop physiology are at play here. How does this crop compare to our standards and market expectations?
 
5. Shelf life. What is the shelf-life of this product in cold storage? How fast does it have to move before it spoils? What is the expected delivery date and turnaround time (add three days for pantry level distribution and 5 days for food banks)?
 
6. Available volume. Can we harvest everything in one trip? Does this require more staff time, volunteers, multiple trips, more trucks, etc. If we return tomorrow or next week which crops can hold, which are more perishable?
 
7. Wholesale market price. What is the wholesale price for tomatoes this  week? How long will this (high or low) price last? This pertains to regional crop forecasts. Regional food banks have the ability to purchase crops especially if prices are low.
 
8. Harvest rate/efficiency. What are the harvest challenges of this crop (weed pressure, pests, and quality defects can slow harvesting rates). What is the experience level of today’s crew? How fast can today’s volunteer group harvest? How much supervision is needed? Is there an alternative crop we can harvest more efficiently? How much on-site training is needed? How much quality control is needed by staff? (i.e. the cull rate for cherry tomatoes can be very high and the harvest rate can be very slow even though this crop is in high demand. )
 
9. Weather Forecast. Are we expecting a frost, heat wave, wind, rain? Weather affects not only scheduling, but crop conditions and accessibility in the fields with mud and snow etc. 
 
10. Farmer Relations. How well do I know this farmer? How big is this farm (available volume)? How skilled is this farmer (consistent quality from crop to crop and across the season)?
 
11. TIME - last but not least! As applied to every other factor above. How long will this opportunity be available? When does the farmer want to plow under the field? Weekly scheduling constraints, budgeting, distribution cycle, etc. 

By Charlotte Border, Seasonal Gleaning Coordinator​
This year we have had the pleasure of working with Ray Mong at Applefield Farm on a weekly basis. Our regular Monday morning trip to his farm in Stow, MA is quite popular with our volunteers; many come back time and time again. It's true that there is something special about the combination of the beautiful wooded drive out to Stow, starting your week on an absolutely gorgeous farm, and often getting the chance to meet and talk with Farmer Ray on a personal level.

Ray has been farming for close to thirty years and a quick jaunt around his fields makes this very apparent. His farm predominantly sells their produce to wholesale markets, such as Whole Foods in the Boston area. This means Ray is a master of organization, timing and successional plantings. The wholesale world can be ruthless. It is unpredictable, with both the prices farmers are paid and the amount of produce ordered from them fluctuating greatly. And yet, the farmer is expected to be totally predictable no matter what. They are expected to have each and every crop, at whatever quantity desired by the buyer, for the entirety of its growing season.

Ray seems to orchestrate all of this effortlessly, and it is because of this that our partnership with him is so strong. He plants fast growing crops like lettuce, kale and radishes every week or two, which ensures that he has a constant supply to sell. That means every time he moves from an old planting to a new planting, we are on his heels harvesting whatever is left over before he plows and reseeds the area. Timing is everything on a farm that is this dialed in. Sometimes we have his tractor crew following us, plowing the crop moments after we finish gleaning it.

While it is exceedingly important that we don’t stall the planting cycles at Applefield Farm, Ray is very supportive of our mission here at Boston Area Gleaners and there are times where he will wait to plow something under until after we can make it out with volunteers to harvest the excess. During a recent trip to his farm, I was chatting with Ray and he told me,“It's better for me, having the gleaners come, it's good for my heart and my brain.”  He knows how much waste occurs at the farm level and is doing his best to minimize his waste to the greatest extent possible. Ray also donates harvested produce that goes unsold to other hunger relief agencies in the area and donates his would-be compost to two local pig farmers.   

Just two years ago, the Mong’s purchased the parcel of land that serves as their main farm site, housing their wash station, coolers & farm stand. Prior to this they had been in a year-to-year verbal lease that prevented them from doing any permanent improvements to the structures on the property.  Since they purchased the land, they have installed four sun-tracking solar panels to provide them with up to 70% of their power needs during peak consumption in the winter when they are running all their greenhouses.

Applefield Farm is truly an example of a farm that has both their business model and the bigger picture figured out. Ray is a savvy business man but also cares deeply for the health of his greater community. We are excited to see how our relationship with him develops further.  Next time you are in Whole Foods, look for produce from “Applefield Farm” or stop by his farm stand on Rt 117 in Stow, you won’t be disappointed!
 
Watch a video of a recent potato glean at Applefield Farm by clicking here!