Gleaning, an Ancient Practice To Feed The Poor

Let There Be No Waste

SARAH HEAVNER picks fruit last month at Florida Southern College.SARAH HEAVNER picks fruit last month at Florida Southern College.

Gleaning is an ancient practice. The Hebrew scriptures contain admonitions for farmers not to harvest all their crops but deliberately to leave some in the field so that the poor can glean.

The Society of St. Andrew takes its name from the disciple of Jesus who found the boy with the bread and fish in the story of the miraculous feeding of 5,000 people. It was founded in 1979 by three United Methodist ministers in Virginia and their families. It now has organized gleaning efforts in 15 states, according to the society's Web site (www.endhunger.org).

Other programs in the society include:

The Potato Project, in which growers donate trailer loads of commercially unmarketable potatoes and the society distributes it; A project in which seed potatoes are donated to poor communities where people have land available for gardening;  Harvest of Hope, an educational program.

In 2008, the society salvaged a total of almost 20.8 million pounds of food, including about 10.9 million pounds gleaned, according to its Web site.

METHODIST TIES

The society continues to have close ties to the United Methodist Church, which supports it with donations. And Florida United Methodist Bishop Timothy Whitaker has a special interest in the society. According to the United Methodist News Service, when he was a pastor in rural Viriginia, the Revs. Ray Buchanan and Ken Horne, visited Whitaker's church. After talking with potato farmers who were members of the church they came up with the Potato Project.

The society has four chapters in the state of Florida, and Lewis has been coordinating gleaning efforts in West Central Florida, including Polk County, since December. She has coordinated about a dozen "gleans" so far. Churches and civic organizations like the Boy and Girl Scouts are her primary sources of volunteers, who only have to agree to some minimal safety precautions and sign a waiver.

"We have a large variety of ages. Gleans on the weekends are big. We have people coming with their families," she says.

The type of produce gleaned naturally depends on the season.

As part of a campuswide study program this year, Heavner, 21, a senior horticulture major from Cocoa, learned about poverty and hunger and efforts to alleviate it. An Internet search turned up the Society of St. Andrew, and Heavner thought about the fruit trees on campus. There are 77 fruit trees on the Florida Southern campus, some of them the remainder of a grove, and most of the time, the fruit goes to waste.

 TO LEARN MORE

Here are ways to find out more about the Society of St. Andrew or to volunteer to help with gleaning.

• Society of St. Andrew Web site:www.endhunger.org has contact information for national and regional offices

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