Gleaning Program

What is gleaning?

Gleaning is the act of harvesting excess or unmarketable produce from a farm. The Gleaning Program at the Vermont Foodbank uses volunteers to glean produce at Vermont farms; the food is then distributed through the Foodbank's network partners to Vermonters-in-need.
 
Why we glean

Food banking has always had its’ roots in food rescue.  Across the nation, for several decades, the national charitable food system has benefited from surplus production and manufacturing.  However, in recent years food production has become more efficient and food banks have seen a decrease in shelf-stable product donations.  Naturally, our reaction to this decline was to look for new opportunities and new sources of food donations.  Knowing that many of the food producers in Vermont are agricultural, it made perfect sense to design a program that would help capture those products that were not making it to market.  Thus gleaning was born at the Vermont Foodbank in great compliment to our other fresh food rescue efforts.

Interested volunteering or learning more? Contact:

Sally Ingraham, Development Associate
Vermont Foodbank
802-477-4109
singraham@vtfoodbank.org

A Short History
The Vermont Foodbank’s gleaning program was developed with help from Salvation Farms’ founder, Theresa Snow. 

Snow began gleaning in 2004 as a side project at Pete's Greens, and in 2005 created Salvation Farms with Jen O’Donnell under the fiscal sponsorship of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT) organized in 2005 to serve the Lamoille Valley area of Vermont.
 
In January 2008, Theresa Snow joined the Vermont Foodbank, setting Salvation Farms aside temporarily, as she helped establish the "Vermont Foodbank Gleaning Program."