A "Gleaning" Opportunity!

Did you know that there is more than enough food on earth to sufficiently feed every single person? Despite this, there are still millions of people who go hungry every day. At the Center for Community Engagment, one of our missions is to reduce the number of people who are going hungry in our community. One of the ways that we are doing this is through "gleanings."

Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmer's fields that would otherwise be left in the fields to rot or be plowed under after harvest. Some ancient cultures promoted gleaning as an early form of a welfare system.

Gleanings allow us to go to local farms and take the crops that the farmers know they will not sell. Our first gleaning was at Oak Haven Farm right down the road in Scotland, CT. We got to go apple picking and collected over 200 pounds of apples and donated them to our local Salvation Army and Catholic Charities right down the road. It was a great opportunity to save fruit that otherwise would have been wasted! Not to mention, fresh vegetables and fruits are not always readily available to those in poverty.

Special thanks to Oak Haven Farm for letting us come down and pick apples, they even let us pick more than we originally anticipated! And a big thank you to our volunteers, Nicole and Israel!