What do you think of when you hear the word “gleaning?”

If you have heard the word before you might picture volunteers picking up surplus food from farms and delivering it to organizations serving people who need it, and you’d be correct. Gleaning is food recovery and redistribution.

Last year, Community Harvest of Central Vermont (CHCV) gleaned and distributed 116,522 pounds of fresh, nutritious food in collaboration with 56 farm and food donor partners. This food reached 33 recipient site organizations across Central Vermont to help support our food insecure neighbors.

But that’s only part of the picture. At CHCV gleaning is more than a food rescue operation. It’s a multi-faceted practice that builds community at every step, connecting farmers, volunteers, and neighbors in a shared local food system.

Gleaning Supports Local Farms

Did you know gleaning helps farmers, not just food shelves?

Farmers grow food to feed people – but not everything makes it to market. Produce that is misshapen, over-abundant, or unsellable by conventional standards is still nutritious, fresh, and worth harvesting and eating. When CHCV partners with a farm, we create a relationship that is more than a transaction. Our staff and volunteers often show up season after season, learning the rhythms of each farm and building trust over time. For many of our 56 farm partners, gleaning has become part of how they participate in their community, a way to ensure that the food they grow nourishes as many neighbors as possible.

We provide an outlet for the surplus or imperfect food they have grown at no extra labor burden to the farmer. We do the picking; we handle the logistics. The farmer benefits from reduced waste, healthier crops and fields, and access to a tax deduction in return for their donation.

Gleaning Connects Volunteers to Something Larger

Did you know volunteering with CHCV builds more than muscle?

CHCV volunteers get their hands dirty and their boots muddy, and they leave with something harder to quantify than pounds of food recovered. They leave with a more tangible connection to where their food comes from, to the farmers who grow it, to the neighbors who need it, and to their fellow gleaners. They experience first-hand the abundance that exists in our local food system – alongside the gaps that still remain.

Over time, that experience tends to lead to deeper relationships. Volunteers who come for a single glean often return, season after season, becoming invested in the mission in ways that extend beyond the field – through advocacy, word of mouth, and community building. Gleaning turns volunteers into stakeholders in our local food system.

Gleaning Gives Recipient Sites a Reliable Resource

Did you know recipient sites receive more than just food?

Food shelves and community meal sites across Central Vermont depend on CHCV not just for food, but for food they and their clients can count on. Because our deliveries are reliable and regular, our recipient site partners can plan around us. They can schedule community meals, create programming, and build gathering spaces knowing that fresh, local produce will be there when they need it.

In some cases, the food we deliver represents up to 50% of the produce a site is able to offer their clients – fresh, field-gleaned fruits and vegetables that might otherwise be unavailable at a food shelf. That reliability transforms what could be a transactional exchange into an ongoing partnership, one that helps strengthen the sense of community and builds resiliency at each of our 33 recipient sites.

Gleaning is More Than Food—It’s Community

The work we do at CHCV builds reliable connections at every level – between farmers and their community, between volunteers and their food, between neighbors in need and the people and organizations who show up for them.

Your financial support is part of what makes this all possible. This July, every time you round up at Hunger Mountain Co-op, your spare change is helping sustain that web of relationships across Central Vermont.

Learn more about our work and explore opportunities to volunteer here or get to know our farm and recipient site partners here. And next time you shop, see how many of our farm and food donor partners can spot on the coop shelves.
Thank you for your contributions — and for being part of this community.

Written by: CHCV staff