What are Gleaners?

 Andrew asked that I explain my activity with the gleaners.

Poor folks gleaning fields after a farmer has harvested their crop has gone on for centuries.

It is mentioned in the Bible several times and is still practised around the world both as a way to feed the poor and also as a means to waste less food and prevent food from entering landfills where it creates methane gas as it decomposes.  

From wikipedia:   Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops in the field after harvest. During harvest, there is food that is left or missed often because it does not meet store standards for uniformity. Sometimes, fields are left because they were not economically profitable to harvest.[1][2] In modern times, gleaning is used to provide fresh foods to those in need. "Dumpster diving", when done for food or culinary ingredients, is seen as a similar form of food recovery.[3] There are multiple organizations that support gleaning, including the Gleaning Network in the UK, and the National Gleaning Project in the United States.[4][5] Both organizations have worked on national networks to connect modern gleaning and food recovery organizations.[4][5]

Wikipedia's page on Gleaning.]

Many of Oregon's food banks and food groups practise gleaning.   The difference in Gleaner groups is the members do the gleaning and then partake of the food gleaned themselves.  To become a member, you must fall into certain income categories.   Yes, we're all rather poor.   Many of the members are elderly, some are young families.  We represent all colors of the rainbow there, from many heritages.

The various gleaner groups in Oregon may have different membership rules.  All require that a member  pay a monthly fee and/or put in a certain number of volunteer hours with the group each month.  My Lebanon friend pays a member fee to her group and must put in four hours a month labor.   My group has no member fee but requires six hours a month of labor.

A person can apply to be an adoptee, if so disabled or elderly they cannot do work or glean.   This means they will not be required to do the six hours of work others must do each month, or come to the weekly food distribution day or work gleans.  Instead, a food box will be delivered to them each week by other volunteers getting in their hours that way.

In the winter, we don't do field gleans.  There are no crops being grown.    Farmers, home owners, anyone with excess produce can offer their extra up to gleaning organizations.   Members must go on two gleans a year to maintain their membership.  We get to keep most of what we personally glean in the fields.   I went on three gleans before harvests ended---squash, grapes and apples.  I made grape juice with the grapes I got.

We also get in store produce and goods that are expired or about to expire or go bad.   Various volunteers go pick up the bread, produce and meats stores are donating the day before or morning of distribution day.   We bring it in, from the vans and private vehicles, on carts and it has to be weighed, before we can put it out during set up for distribution.

During set up, a person can choose to work the produce line, the canned food/dry goods line, bread tables, meat, or the coolers.   We have two lines of tables set up.  One line is for dry goods, milk and desserts, the other side for the coolers (four), which contain packaged perishables like deli sandwiches, salads, cheeses, yogurt, its always different.  

The produce set up is the hardest.  We go through all the produce that comes in, once its been weighed and throw out anything spoiled or rotten.  It goes into a garbage bag and gets weighed.  then I think it goes to livestock members. These are folks who are members because they have livestock and get food no longer fit for human consumption.   Often they have pigs or chicken flocks, something like that.

Set up is fast and furious.  The various vegetables and fruits are orangized into black bins, with extra underneath, on plastic pallets, so replenish the stock in the bins as people move through the line.  Often there are dozens of boxes of produce brought in that must be sorted and displayed.  There are plastic clamshell salad mixes and vegetables, and large bins of loose peppers, apples, potatoes, etc.  We neveer know week to week what will be brought in.

I started working set up on the vegetable line, but then the volunteer in charge of the dry goods line snagged me over and so I work with her mostly now.   Yesterday, however, after working awhile on the dry goods side, unpacking cans of tomato sauce and cereal, taping up the torn boxes, the vegetable, fruit lead person asked for help.   Many of the regular volunteers were not there.   So I moved over there, then I packed two adoptee boxes.  I do not like packing boxes for people I don't know, choosing what they may or may not like.  The adoptee boxes can't exceed 25 lbs. since someone has to carry those often up stairs, to deliver.  

Precisely at 1:30, our boss lady, who is in her 80's, calls for us to get in line.  She is small in stature but has a commanding voice!   She can also come down on a person misbehaving like thunder.  We line up to draw numbers.  The number determines the order we go through food distribution line.  Drawing a high number elicits groans.  Means a wait and sometimes--slim pickins if you're one of the last to go through.  She will also check with the meat man, at the back, who is in charge of putting out the meat, both that brought in from stores, and what's leftover in freezers.   Then she'll tell us how many meats we get to take.  Its anywhere from none to three or four packages.   The meat is in coolers at the back of the room by the scales.  

Yesterday I got number 16 and was very very happy.   we have about 100 members.  There are only 50 numbers.   If you don't get a number, you have to wait til everyone with a number has gone through.  We bring bags or boxes to put our food in.   

When we start through the distribution line, we start out at the coolers on one side, milk and beverages on the table opposite and work our way down the line.  There are signs saying how many items from each area you can take.  Like its one item each cooler or one item between two coolers.   I try to have in mind what vegetables I want once I get to the produce section.   I try to not take more than one item of bread or I won't use it.   Sometimes there are chips.  I got some cashew nuts three weeks ago and still have a few.  I took some for my lunch break and shared them with Rosy, a lady in her 80's and she shared some peanut butter crackers she had.

It's hard if I'm hungry not to grab too much in the line, more than I could eat in a week.   I now keep myself from all the desserts for the most part.   These are items that did not sell at a couple local grocery stores and are so unbelievably delicious looking they are almost impossible to resist.  Some weeks there is little displayed that interests me and sometimes there is.  Yesterday I got a lot of great vegetables and a bag of chips.

After you've gone through the line, your bags are weighed and the weight of the food is recorded by your name.    After we leave, the clean up volunteers set to work, breaking down the pop up grocery lines, cleaning the tables and floor, putting away the tables.  The gleaners group operates out of a church auditorium and kitchen.  I think they pay rent.  We elect officers and board.  We have a meeting once a month  that is mandatory to attend.  We do a few fundraisers through the year too. That pays for gas for the vans that pick up food and other things.  We have a food dehydrator now donated by the Siletz tribe I think it was.

I like working with the ladies and men there.  Sometimes people are yelling at one another or at me, and I let it roll on by.  Some of the lead folks are perfectionists and I can relate.   We all get testy.  They're my kind of people, down to earth, imperfect, and many of them are down right fun and crack jokes, some inappropriate.   It's a different experience for me.  I've not been around a lot of people for a long time and turns out I enjoy it immensely.   I told one lady I'd probably show up even if I didn't get any food and she said it was same for her.  She has no family and lives alone too.

I don't know if I explained it all very well.  Basically its a once a week engagement where I arrive at 11:00 and usually get home around 4:00 p.m.  I come home with two, sometimes three bags of food.   This food has greatly helped me out.  Prices around here for everything have skyrocketed to the point of desperation in paying for basics like food.  But outside of the immense help with food, its also given me human contact, which is everything to me.