Gleaning a Harvest of Food for the Poor : Crops That Would Otherwise Rot in the Field Are Gathered by and for the Needy

On any given day in Orange County, an abundance of produce goes to waste in the fields either because it doesn’t meet consumer standards or because market conditions are too poor. Luckily, there are two gleaning operations that use volunteers to pick these vegetables and fruits and get them to low-income families who otherwise would go hungry. That’s especially important because donations to food banks have declined 25% in recent years, even as demand for food has risen.

The oldest of these operations is Sunshine Outreach, which last year picked about a million pounds of produce. Coordinator Judy Williams says she tries to get those who need the food to do the picking as a way of helping themselves. On any given day, there are 20 to 50 Sunshine Outreach volunteers out picking in Orange County fields. At times--such as a recent potato harvest in San Clemente--hundreds turn out to help. Sunshine Outreach also directly provides food to more than 50 poor families.

The county’s newer salvaging operation is the smaller Irvine Gleaning Project, which recently received a $5,600 seed grant from the city of Irvine in order to get its nonprofit status. Project volunteers pick fields one morning a week and soon will add a Saturday morning a month. The philosophy of the project is somewhat different than Sunshine Outreach’s: coordinator Charlene Turco said volunteers deliver the produce to food banks, which then distribute it to needy persons. The Irvine Gleaning Project has been able to save more than 118,000 pounds of food in about a year.

Gathering leftover produce from the fields is hot and dirty work. Volunteers must work quickly; vegetables deteriorate in the sun, and farmers often are anxious to replant their acreage with corn, cabbage, squash or other crops. But volunteers report they feel rewarded because they are saving valuable foodstuff while also helping to feed the poor.

Both gleaning groups say that much more food rots or is plowed under than can be picked and distributed with the current volunteer base. Still, so much food is taken from the fields in Orange County that often there is enough to share with other counties, or even in cities in Mexico.

Williams quotes Leviticus (19:9-10) when she talks about Sunshine Outreach. “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. . . . Leave them for the poor and alien.�

Well said.