ACORN

6/25/2011

This past Saturday kicked off the first of the Bristol Farmers Market gleans. Our great volunteers have stepped up to keep gleaning the Bristol Market this year. There efforts are valiant and well appreciated as they provide fresh produce to the Bristol community. This week the contributors were New Leaf Organics, Mountain Warrior Farm, and Elizabeth’s Creative Creations. Gleaned products included head lettuce, scallions, homemade pesto, cookies and apple squares. These great farmers market goodies were donated to Living Well on Maple Street in Bristol. Look for the gleaners at the market every Saturday!

First Glean of the Season: Summer 2011

6/23/2011

Despite the dreary morning, today was the first official glean of 2011. Four Pillars Farm, located in Whiting, had two rows of excess head lettuce that they offered to the gleaning program. The glean was definitely short and sweet. It took me about 15 minutes to harvest the lettuce, however I harvested 79 pounds of beautiful head lettuce. Upon delivery, the five boxes of lettuce were so fresh from the farm that many slugs and worms accompanied them but with just a little washing they were looking great and people we were very excited.

The farmers market gleans have kept the HOPE food shelf well stocked with fresh lettuce, so most of these head were taken to the Vergennes Congregations Church on Water Street where the Vergennes Community Food Shelf is based. Those visiting the food shelf were very happy to have the fresh produce available. The rest of the lettuce was taken to the John Graham Homeless Shelter, also in Vergennes. The lettuce was a little to bitter for the market but it was much appreciated in the community. Thank you to Four Pillars Farm for the opportunity! You can find Four Pillars Farm at the Middlebury Farmers Market.

Middlebury Market Gleaning Commences!

6/11/2011

The first Middlebury Market glean was this past Saturday! The gleanerswere greeted with great enthusiasm and farmers were more than willing to donate their excess produce to HOPE! A variety of fresh produce was donated and Monday morning, HOPE clients were thrilled to receive some fresh organic veggies.

We collected 31 pounds of produce including: head lettuce, summer squash, zucchini, radishes, and fresh herbs. Thank you to our generous farmers: Flanders Farm, Elmer Farm, South Hardscrabble Farm, and Neshobe Farm.

Look for the gleaners at both the Wednesday and Saturday Market. If you have any excess produce in your garden and will be in the area, the gleaners will be available to collect it during the market or anytime during normal business hours at the HOPE office.

Meet This Summers Gleaning Intern!

6/6/2011

Courtney Devoid is a sophomore at Middlebury College. She has been deeply involved in helping Addison County’s low-income population and is looking forward to spending this summer gleaning produce for people who can’t afford it. Courtney lives locally and hopes to use her knowledge of Vermont and presence in the community to continue the gleaning programs success. The Alliance for Civic Engagement at Middlebury College has funded Courtney to help build HOPE’s gleaning program again this year.

MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE ANTHOPOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY DEPARTMENT SUPPORTS

THE SENIOR WORK OF KATE OLEN ’11

GIFT GIVING AND RECIPROCITY IN ADDISON COUNTY AGRICULTURE:

THE GLEANERS AND I

PLEASE VISIT HOPE’S GLEANING WEBSITE HERE:

http://www.hope-vt.org/whatwedo/gleaningprogram.html

UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture Lecture Series Presents:

BRIDGING THE GAP:

GLEANING AND FOOD JUSTIC E IN ADDISON COUNTY, VT

Jeanne Montross, HOPE Director and Kate Olen, Middlebury College Class of 2011

When: Wednesday, February 23, 2011. 4:30 – 5:30 pm, discussion to follow.

Where: Axinn Center, 229. Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT. (Located on Old Chapel Road off Route 30 or 125. Parking available off Route 30 in CFA lot.)

Gleaning in the news!

This article originally ran in the Oct. 18 edition of the Addison County Independent.

Gleaners comb the fields for leftovers

By ANDREA SUOZZO

MIDDLEBURY — For the second year running, the Addison Gleaners can be found out in the fields, picking peppers, root vegetables, Swiss chard and anything else that happens to be left over.

This produce will never see a table at the farmers’ market or a wholesale bin — everything that the gleaners pick goes to the food shelf at Helping Overcome Poverty’s Effects, or HOPE, in Middlebury.

The essential idea of gleaning is simple: Harvest the leftover, surplus and less-than-perfect crops on a farm — the ones that, while perfectly good, would not sell —and give it to people who may not otherwise have access to the produce.

“This allows us to provide people with fresh, healthy localfood that they couldn’t afford to be purchasing,” said HOPE Executive Director Jeanne Montross. “This is wonderful stuff, and it costs a lot of money because there’s a lot of work involved in making it.”

Corinne Almquist, who founded Addison Gleaners last year with the help of a year-long environmental fellowship, said that as of late last week the program this year had harvested well over 10,000 pounds of produce from more than 27 farms. This is compared to the program’s initial year, when 8,478 pounds of produce from 13 farms went to the food shelf. “It’s growing, slowly but surely,” Almquist said. About once a week, depending on the season, a list of gleaning opportunities is emailed to volunteer gleaners, and people turn out to help harvest produce.

In addition to gleaning the surplus produce at local farms, an Addison Gleaners representative has been on hand at the end of each Bristol and Middlebury farmers’ market to collect unsold produce. Almquist said farmers there are more than willing to donate produce that they may not be able to sell at the next farmers’ market. “It’s already there, already harvested, and it’s top quality,” she said.

Jennifer Blackwell, who with her husband, Spencer, owns Elmer Farm in Middlebury, said this makes donating the produce much easier. “It’s really helpful to have someone there,” she said —especially for produce like lettuce. Blackwell said she tries to use or freeze leftover produce from the farmers’ market for her own family, but during the peak of the season, there’s plenty of surplus.

This is the second year Elmer Farm has participated in the gleaning program, and Blackwell said that having people come to glean in their fields doesn’t hurt the farm’s income — paying someone to harvest just a few beets or a sparse bed of lettuce is not efficient, she said. “Mostly it’s stuff that would have gotten tilled in with the tractor,” she said. And if there’s a freeze coming, having gleaners picking at the farm helps get the most out of the land.

With the help of the gleaners, the excess produce doesn’t go to waste. This year, the gleaning group has benefited from the participation of students from Middlebury College, and Almquist, herself a 2009 graduate, led a gleaning orientation trip for first-year students this fall. The group spent a day at Golden Russet Farm in Shoreham picking crops, and a day at HOPE freezing and storing Swiss chard.

Still, it hasn’t been an easy road, said Almquist. This summer, while she worked at Golden Russet Farm, Middlebury College student Jessie Ebersole took on the role ofcoordinator. Ebersole has since left to study in Bolivia and Almquist is coordinating again with the help of two college students, Kate Olen and Jacob Udell. The two are doing an independent study project that looks at the gleaning program. “I really wanted to get involved with Addison County farming,” said Olen, a senior Environmental Studies major. She and Udell are in charge of coordinating one glean a week and picking up produce at the Wednesday farmers’ markets. “It’s really important on several levels, to be able to bring produce into the food bank,” said Udell. “In terms of dietary options and health, … and it’s getting edible, fully nutritious produce (that’s) not up to the aesthetic quality that stores and markets need. We’re able to get it to people who still need it.“

The year has seen an influx of new participation, with farmers and home gardeners beginning to drop food off at the food bank on their own. People have also turned out at HOPE to chop and freeze vegetables for the winter, as well. But Almquist said that the future of the program is somewhat up in the air. Going forward, it will need a coordinator to organize gleaners, farmers’ market collections and food processing in times of produce surplus. She’s hoping to find funding for a coordinator or to get churches and community organizations involved in a way that makes the program self- sustaining.

And with HOPE’s current struggles to keep the food bank stocked, Montross said the gleaning program has been a great help. “It’s always a struggle when the food shelf is low,” said Montross. “In wintertime we get donations of non-perishable goods, but in the summer and fall when supplies are low, it’s a really big help.”

To get involved with the Addison Gleaners, contact gleanaddison@gmail.com.

Reporter Andrea Suozzo is at andreas@addisonindependent.com.

A Record-Setting Day in Addison County Gleaning History!

Thanks to the help of a dedicated and excited volunteer crew, last Wednesday (10/20) marked a record-setting day in Addison County Gleaning history! Between the Middlebury College Organic Garden and Lester Farm in New Haven, we were able to bring 1,563 total lbs of produce to the HOPE food shelf! A generous 334 pounds of carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, butternut squash, and potatoes came from the Organic Garden, while a whopping 1,229 lbs of hot peppers, sweet peppers, and pumpkins came from the rain-soaked fields of Lester Farm. The next day (10/21), another 481 lbs of pumpkins were collected from Lester Farm, bringing our two day total to 2,044 lbs of produce. Great news! Even better news? There are more gleans in the near future! Stay tuned for further information, or email us at gleanaddison@gmail.com to become a volunteer!

Volunteer gleaners from Middlebury College and the community at Lester Farms!

Corinne Almquist loves pumpkins!

A Glean to Celebrate 350.org’s Global Work Party!

10/10/10

This past Sunday as part of 350.org‘s 10/10/10 Global Day of Action, the Addison Gleaners got to work! Nine Middlebury College students and our fearless gleaning leader Corinne Almquist teamed up with Golden Russet Farm in Shoreham to glean beets for the HOPE food shelf. We spent a few hours harvesting from the huge bed that Golden Russet was so kind to donate. Splitting up into pickers and cutters, we managed to harvest a record-setting 483 pounds of beets!! Our team was so excited to play a small part in 350.org‘s Global Work Party, and to be able to donate such beautiful produce to HOPE.

As this year’s vegetable harvest will be winding down soon, so too will the gleaning season. However, there will still be a few more opportunities to join us around Addison County! If you are interested in spending some time gleaning, please let us know at gleanaddison@gmail.com.

Upcoming Beet Glean: Sunday, 10/10/10

Please join us in celebrating the Global Work Party for climate solutions in partnership with 350.org.   On this day, people in nearly every country in the world will come together for a day of communal work.  Together, we will show our support for solutions to the climate crisis, and we will demonstrate to our leaders that if we can get to work to address climate change, then they can too! Please email us at gleanaddison@gmail.com if you are planning on attending or if you would like a ride. We will be gleaning beets on the farm from 10am to 12pm. Bring your own small kitchen knife if you can!

New Gleaners Jump Aboard!

Sunday, September 12th

This weekend, seven Middlebury College students participated in a 2 day gleaning adventure as part of an orientation trip for new freshmen. We picked up hundreds of pounds of potatoes, butternut squash, and tomatoes from Golden Russet Farm in Shoreham, enjoying the amazing warmth of a late summer day. The students picked apples at Champlain Orchards to donate to HOPE, and we spent the day at the food shelf today blanching and freezing chard, as well as making a giant batch of spicy salsa with fresh ingredients from Golden Russet! It was sobering to realize that even with eight energetic volunteers, processing food can be quite a time intensive process. Volunteers are very much needed this week to continue preserving chard and tomatoes, so please contact the gleaners at gleanaddison@gmail.com if you can help out.

A huge thank you to all of the students at Middlebury who were involved in this successful weekend.

Upcoming Gleaning Opportunity

SUNDAY September, 5th @ 1:00pm

We’ll be gleaning tomatoes at Neshobe Farm in Brandon.

All tools and materials for harvest provided. Please bring appropriate personal gear for the weather and your willing hands!

Contact: GleanAddison@gmail.com if you plan to join us and/or would like to share rides.

Thank you, hope to see you in the field soon.

July at the Addison County Gleaning Program:

7/26/10

This past month has been filled with excitement. Here are a few snapshots of events.

Flower Power:

7/1710

On this Friday Golden Russet Farm filled a truck with flowers for HOPE. These potted starts, which Will and Judy Stevens no longer wanted in their greenhouse, made HOPE’s entrance room seem like a hothouse for a day. One full business day was all that it took to empty the overstuffed room, as HOPE clients eagerly selected from the varieties to add a little bit of color to their lawns and empty flowerpots. While the gleaning program is typically associated with local food, the flowers encouraged many smiles. They demonstrate the greater extent of the gleaning program’s scope and potential.

First Glean of the Season!

7/20/10

Last Tuesday marked our first official glean of the 2010 harvest season, at Elmer Farm in East Middlebury. Volunteers harvested 135 pounds of kale, in addition to kohlrabi, broccoli and cabbage. The kale was just a little too tough for the Blackwells to want to sell, but it will taste delicious when it is steamed and used in soups and lasagnas by HOPE clients. A big thank-you to the farmers and the gleaners.

More Gleans Followed Shortly:

7/23/10, 7/25/10

On Friday the Middlebury College Organic Garden called for gleaners to harvest 37 pounds of green beans that were not going to be sold. They also donated 14 pounds of cucumbers and 42 pounds of surplus zucchini to the food shelf. On Sunday at the garden there was another harvest for HOPE, this time bringing in 31 pounds of cucumbers and 63 pounds of zucchini to be distributed at the food shelf.

Produce Pick-Ups:

7/19/10, 7/23/10, 7/26/10

Golden Russet Farm and LaLumiere Farm have been generously considering the gleaning program when they find themselves with surplus produce. Making three trips to these farms to pick-up vegetables in a week’s time has led to the presence of over 500 pounds of zucchini and over 600 pounds of cucumbers at the food shelf, in addition to sizeable amounts of sweet corn, green peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes. As August approaches on the heels of the recent heat wave there is more variety at farms and at the food shelf than ever before this season.

Garlic and Flowers at Ripton Elementary School:

7/22/10

This past Thursday was a fun day for one of the gleaning coordinators. Jessie Ebersole had the opportunity to visit the Ripton Elementary School garden, meet some students, and chat about the gleaning program. After introductions and explanations, schoolkids cleaned and braided garlic and cut and arranged beautiful bouquets of flowers to be taken to the food shelf. It was a small effort, but a wonderful one for all the people who helped produce it, and for those who were recipients of the students’ handiwork. Truly at the Addison County Gleaning Program, no task is too big or too small to be worth our time.

Finally, a big thank-you to the many farms who continue to support our work with their generous donations at the end of each Farmers’ Market.

South Hardscrabble Farm, Gildrien Farm, Elmer Farm, Golden Russet Farm, Foggy Meadow Farm, Norris Berry Farm, Pedalbarrow Farm, Neshobe Farm, Four Pillars Farm, Maple Hill Farm, Singing Cedars Farmstead, and Marble Rose Farm.

Dill Days

Working for the Addison County Gleaning Program is never the same from one day to the next. However, a few weeks ago, there was one day that was particularly atypical. Around 10:00 in the morning, a thoughtful woman called in and brought over 17 pounds of unprocessed dill from her home garden. The plants were 4 ½ feet tall, with thick, branching stalks. “They were taking over my garden,” she said. Instead of throwing them on the compost pile, she thought that HOPE would be able to make good use of them.

Providence would have it that the coming evening was the only day of the month that the Bristol Food Shelf was open, which meant it could all quickly be distributed fresh. (There are also many tasty dill preservation options, so don’t let this coincidence discourage you from bringing in your own oversize bundle of herbs on any given day).

The smell of dill crept into every corner of the HOPE entrance room. People with side offices kept opening their doors to inhale the scent. I spent a fair portion of my day pulling off ordinary-sized sprigs and putting them in bags for households.

To make sure that people had plenty of ideas for how to use the dill they were receiving I engaged in a little research. I never realized quite the scope for creativity that dill can supply. Soon I was stuffing small slips of paper into each bag with tips on incorporating dill into cream cheese, butter, soups, green salads, potato salads, rice, pasta, and vinegar.

The dill donation brought a lot of excitement and great taste to HOPE. The next time you are out tending your home garden, think of HOPE! You might be surprised by what we can put to good use.

Middlebury Farmers’ Market Gleaning Starts

6/14/10

This past Saturday marked the first Middlebury Farmers’ Market glean of the season. The market wasn’t quite as bustling as usual due to the rain, but farmers were more than willing to donate much of their unsold harvest to HOPE when the market closed.

In total, we were thrilled to receive 66 pounds of produce! A variety of greens, including head lettuce, mesclun, swiss chard, beet greens, spinach, and collard greens are greeting customers this morning at the Middlebury food shelf, along with scallions and dill. In addition, the Addison County Community lunch program will use local lettuce for three of their lunches this week.

Thank-you to our generous contributors: South Hardscrabble Farm, Golden Russet Farm, Elmer Farm, Shepherd’s Boy Farm, Neshobe Farm, Pedalbarrow Farm, and Hawk Hill Farm.

Addison gleaners now look forward to being at all the Middlebury markets, Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9am to 12:30 pm. Look for our new chalkboard sign and donation box. Home gardeners and farmers who want to participate in HOPE’s Grow an Extra Row program can drop off produce throughout the market, and get more information. Hope to see you there!

Bristol Farmer’s Market Kick-Off

Great weather and curious customers graced our tent at the season’s first Farmer’s Market in Bristol, on June 5th. New to this market, Addison Gleaners are glad to have strong support from fellow vendors and market-goers. The stand provides a variety of gleaning information, encourages new volunteer sign-ups, and hosts food and financial collections. By selling annual and perennial flower seedlings, Addison Gleaners will raise money for food distribution, printing and other maintenance costs.

Bristol Vendors contributed fresh tomatoes, salad sprouts, scallions, salad mix, and vegetable seedlings to Saturday’s glean. These were delivered to Living Well in Bristol and to Bristol’s Mountain Street location of Jonathan Graham Shelter of Vergennes.

Thanks Vendors: Vermont Hydropnics, Roundabaout Sprouts, New Leaf Organics, and Kristin Patton for your food donations. Also, thank you to the curious customers whose purchases help further our mission.

We hope to chat with you at future markets on the green in Bristol, Saturdays 10am – 1pm. http://www.bristolfarmersmarket.org/

June 8th, 2010

Meet our NEW GLEANING COORDINATORS!!

Working with all of you on building the Addison County Gleaning Program has been a true joy, and it is my honor to pass along coordination

responsibilities to two dedicated, passionate, and vivacious women. Meet Julie Clark and Jessie Ebersole, the two new gleaning coordinators for Addison County. Here is a brief introduction to them:

Jessie Ebersole hails from Montpelier and will be a junior at Middlebury College this fall. She spent last summer working at the Middlebury College Organic Garden, and has been deeply involved in local agriculture initiatives in the county. The Alliance for Civic Engagement at Middlebury College has funded Jessie to help build HOPE’s gleaning program. I am hoping that she will take gleaning to new heights through her expertise in food preservation from her tenure at the Weybridge Environmental Studies house 

Julie and her gleaner-in-training, Rowan

Julie Clark began as a volunteer gleaner for Salvation Farms in the Lamoille Valley, while earning her bachelors degree in Sustainable Agriculture at Sterling College. She continued gleaning and doing administrative and promotional work for Salvation Farms, while sitting on their steering committee. Since then, she has worked with farms in the Northeast Kingdom, including Wildbranch Valley Farm and Pete’s Green’s, and led community and school garden groups in central New York State. Now, as a resident of Bristol, Julie hopes her involvement in Addison Gleaners can keep spreading the mission to more parts of Vermont and continue repairing connections within our food systems.

If you would like to be in touch with our new coordinators, please email us at gleanaddison@gmail.com

-Corinne

May 18th, 2010

Gleaning  Season Has Arrived!

The gleaning season of 2010 started early in April this year, with gorgeous spinach from the Singing Cedars greenhouse. Volunteers headed out to the farm on 3 different days, for a total harvest of 256.5 pounds of spinach! The greens were distributed around to various distribution sites, including the Community Supper and Community Lunch programs in Middlebury. All of the spinach that wasn’t handed out fresh kept staff at HOPE very busy washing and freezing for later distribution. The freezer at HOPE is now stocked with local, frozen spinach, ready to be eaten! A huge thank you to Scott and Suzanne at Singing Cedars for kicking off what we hope will be a season full of hard work and fresh food.

May 2010

Introducing the Gleaning Blog!

by  Corinne Almquist

The Addison County food scene these days is bustling with so much activity that it can be hard to keep track of all that’s going on. New farms springing up left and right, farm to school initiatives taking off, plans for processing facilities in the works, seeds sprouting…it is an unbelievably exciting place to be! As part of this movement, the Addison County Food Shelf at HOPE piloted a gleaning program at the end of 2009, harvesting surplus produce from farms and farmer’s markets for distribution to low income families around the county. The program was a great success; in just a few months, we signed up over 100 volunteers and were able to rescue almost 9,000 pounds of food from twelve participating farms.

As the gleaning program continues to grow, we’ve received lots of requests from folks who want to keep up to date on what’s happening. So here we are – welcome to the gleaning blog! In this forum, we hope to keep track of all of the gleans happening across the county, post volunteer opportunities, and highlight other important food initiatives happening in Addison County. We want you to be involved! If you would like to post a submission about gleaning, food security, or another important food-related topic, please contact us at gleanaddison@gmail.com

Late fall spinach glean at Elmer Farm

Soon we will be able to post a photo album of some of the gleaning that happened in 2009. If you missed the fun, don’t worry – there will be PLENTY of opportunities to get out in the field (and into the kitchen) in 2010! In the meantime, you can read about exciting food and agriculture happenings on the Middlebury College campus at the MiddFood blog: http://www.middfood.com/index.html

A big thank you to all of our readers and supporters, and to the Addison County Relocalization Network (ACORN) for hosting our blog.

Happy to meet you,

The Addison Gleaners

Volunteer crew at Elmer farm, gleaning with glee!

Grow a Row for HOPE

by Corinne Almquist

Planting season is upon us, along with an exciting opportunity to supply our neighbors with fresh, nutritious food. Please consider joining Addison County’s initiative to increase access to local produce by growing an extra row of vegetables for the Addison County Food Shelf at HOPE, in Middlebury, this season! Last year, farmers and gardeners in Rutland County produced over 10,000 pounds of fresh food for local food shelves, and we are launching a similar effort in Addison County in 2010. Gardeners can plant one or more rows of vegetables as part of this community effort to reduce hunger in our county. Any extra produce can be brought to HOPE Monday through Friday or to our collection sites, one at the Middlebury Farmer’s Market and one at the Bristol Farmer’s Market, both on Saturdays. Please email gleanaddison@gmail.com with any questions, or if you would like to volunteer as part of the Addison County gleaning effort. Happy digging!