Boston Area Gleaming Project

The purpose of the corporation is to engage in the following activities: to harvest for charity, glean, unwanted produce from Boston area farms for food pantries, meal programs and homeless shelters. “Gleaning” is a Biblical term referring to the law of those times requiring farmers to let poor people onto their farms after harvest to “glean” whatever produce was left in the fields. There is no such law now, and farmers often plow under produce left in the fields because either they planted too much, or the produce is a little too ripe or damaged by insects, animal bites or frost so as to be aesthetically displeasing, but still edible and nutritious. So the Farm Gleaning Project proposes to contact Boston area farmers to ask if they would donate such produce, and to organize “gleaning crews” to harvest the produce for charity, and then to donate it to food banks and pantries, meal programs and homeless shelters, or below wholesale price markets at low income public housing. The crews could include people from receiving food pantries and shelters. In addition the Project will ask farmers to donate produce seconds after farmers’ markets for the same purposes. Another planned activity will be to educate low income people on the health and nutrition of local and organic produce, and to offer information on how to prepare and cook the greens and roots in a healthy and simple way. The Project has already been under way for three years, gleaning and donating 664 boxes of produce (over 13,000 pounds) to charity.