Gleaners mark record year for feeding the hungry

The Southwestern Ontario Gleaners turned more than a million pounds of fresh produce into a record 3.7 million servings of dried vegetables last year.

The charity’s previous record was 3.1 million servings in 2017 and the volunteers who slice and dehydrate vegetables as soup and stew mixes to feed the poor are expecting their efforts to continue to grow this year.

“We’re on target for 2019 to probably have a bigger year, as well,” administrator Michelle McCormack said Thursday. New to the Leamington-based charity is the dehydrating party. Two people, including a teenager decided to celebrate their birthdays last year by getting their friends to volunteer to slice and dice vegetables before celebrating their birthdays at the Leamington plant.

“That was a gift. It was their birthday but it was a gift to us because then in turn we can pay it forward and hopefully get the soup or the dehydrated vegetable mix to people who need it,” McCormack said.

The record year meant the Southwestern Ontario Gleaners fed about 10,000 people somewhere in the world every day last year, board chairwoman Tina Quiring said in a recent letter to supporters.

“We made great progress in 2018 but, with ongoing hunger crises, and continued high amounts of food waste in our world today, we need to work even harder to bring justice for people around the world, and for the good of our planet.”

The Gleaners take their name from the Bible, in which farmers were instructed to leave some of their crop behind for the needy. The group in Leamington started slicing and dehydrating vegetables in 2013 and 2014.

Out of the one million pounds of produce donated by local farmers in 2018, about 200,000 pounds were shared as fresh produce with local food banks and the Plentiful Harvest food rescue program in Windsor. That was also a larger amount than in other years, McCormack said.

It was their birthday but it was a gift to us because then in turn we can pay it forward …

The dehydrated vegetable mix can be made into soup, stews, vegetable patties and even ground to make bread depending on the region and culture using it. McCormack said most of the dehydrated food stayed in Ontario last year including apple slices that were made into 155,000 servings of apple snacks and were mostly distributed to the Leamington, Kingsville and Windsor Goodfellows for Christmas hampers. The Gleaners also shipped four truckloads of fresh produce to First Nation communities in northern Ontario, and one load to northern Saskatchewan last year. The dehydrated vegetable mixes that went overseas were shipped to Haiti and Honduras, she said. An annual fundraiser in April raised more than $10,000 last year. This year’s fundraising dinner is April 13 at the Portuguese Club in Leamington. For more information on tickets call 519-326-SOUP (7687).