Focus On: Gleaning…An Arizona Tradition Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. Some ancient cultures promoted gleaning as an early form of a welfare system. Fresh Produce is the Key By Pauline Hechler, Community Food Bank Community Food Bank officials have long realized that fresh produce is the key to helping ensure a well-rounded diet for our clients. However produce is one of the most cost-prohibitive items for the food bank to purchase. Luckily, the backyards of Tucson have always been an ample source of produce—mostly citrus fruit—for the food bank. When Jean Fox came to CFB in 1988 locals were donating about 5,000 pounds of home-grown produce per year. At the time, donations from Southern Arizona’s produce brokers were low and much more produce was needed than local gardeners could provide. Jean’s position of gleaning coordinator was the key to obtaining that much-needed additional produce. During her nine years as gleaning coordinator Jean could be found bright and early most mornings doing anything from picking apples to digging up potatoes with a staff of volunteers—sometimes seven days a week. She had farms from Cochise, How Backyard Gleaning Benefits Food Banks By Donna Rodgers, United Food Bank In Arizona, the months of January through March bring with them an abundance of vitamin-rich citrus. Donors begin calling United Food Bank as early as December to arrange to have their trees picked so that the fruit will not go to waste, but instead be donated to feed the hungry. It is also about this time that our Volunteer Coordinator is busy accepting phone calls from volunteers wishing to donate their time to pick the fruit. Volunteer groups include families, businesses, church groups, senior groups, part-time residents, Scout troops and other service groups. Oftentimes Scouts working on their Eagle Scout Award arrange a citrus-picking project to meet the award criteria. United Food Bank plays matchmaker with the donor and volunteer groups to arrange a convenient time to glean the fruit from the donors’ trees. Once a date is scheduled, United Food Bank will arrange to deliver collection containers to the site and will Graham, Greenlee, Pima and Santa Cruz counties donating excess crops. Her last few years as gleaning coordinator brought as many as 700,000 pounds of donated produce to the food bank. Change came suddenly to Jean’s position with something as simple as a donation of russet potatoes from a farm in Eloy. Over a million pounds of potatoes were donated, but needed to be dug from the fields. Jean’s large staff of volunteers worked seven days a week for months filling truck after truck with the russets. From the start they knew they would never dig all of the potatoes out of the fields in time. Food banks from all over the state came to help. have citrus-picking equipment available for the volunteers. Once the fruit is picked, United Food Bank will send its truck to pick up the full collection bins. United Food Bank is blessed to have several groups that handle the entire process themselves including recruiting their volunteers, providing their own equipment and delivering the fruit to the food bank. These groups work in concentrated areas of the East Valley such as mobile home parks, gated communities and neighborhoods. By handling the entire process, they are a tremendous help to the food bank. The Gleaners by Jean Francois Millet Continued on page 4. Continued on page 4.
Transcript
Focus On: Gleaning…An Arizona TraditionGleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. Some ancient cultures promoted gleaning as an early form of a welfare system.
Fresh Produce is the KeyBy Pauline Hechler, Community Food Bank
Community Food Bank officials have long realized that fresh produce is the key to helping ensure a well-rounded diet for our clients. However produce is one of the most cost-prohibitive items for the food bank to purchase. Luckily, the
backyards of Tucson have always been an ample source of produce—mostly citrus fruit—for the food bank.
When Jean Fox came to CFB in 1988 locals were donating about 5,000 pounds of home-grown produce per year. At the time, donations from Southern Arizona’s produce brokers were low and much more produce was needed than local gardeners could provide. Jean’s position of gleaning coordinator was the key to obtaining that much-needed additional produce.
During her nine years as gleaning coordinator Jean could be found bright and early most mornings doing anything from picking apples to digging up potatoes with a staff of volunteers—sometimes seven days a week. She had farms from Cochise,
How Backyard Gleaning Benefits Food BanksBy Donna Rodgers, United Food Bank
In Arizona, the months of January through March bring with them an abundance of vitamin-rich citrus. Donors begin calling United Food Bank as early as December to arrange to have their trees picked so that the fruit will not go to waste, but instead be donated to feed the hungry.
It is also about this time that our Volunteer Coordinator is busy accepting phone calls from volunteers wishing to donate their time to pick the fruit. Volunteer groups include families, businesses, church groups, senior groups, part-time residents, Scout troops and other service groups. Oftentimes Scouts working on their Eagle Scout Award arrange a citrus-picking project to meet the award criteria.
United Food Bank plays matchmaker with the donor and volunteer groups to arrange a convenient time to glean the fruit from the donors’ trees. Once a date is scheduled, United Food Bank will arrange to deliver collection containers to the site and will
Graham, Greenlee, Pima and Santa Cruz counties donating excess crops. Her last few years as gleaning coordinator brought as many as 700,000 pounds of donated produce to the food bank.
Change came suddenly to Jean’s position with something as simple as a donation of russet potatoes from a farm in Eloy. Over a million pounds of potatoes were donated, but needed to be dug from the fields. Jean’s large staff of volunteers worked seven days a week for months filling truck after truck with the russets. From the start they knew they would never dig all of the potatoes out of the fields in time. Food banks from all over the state came to help.
have citrus-picking equipment available for the volunteers. Once the fruit is picked, United Food Bank will send its truck to pick up the full collection bins.
United Food Bank is blessed to have several groups that handle the entire process themselves including recruiting their volunteers, providing their own equipment and delivering the fruit to the food bank. These groups work in concentrated areas of the East Valley such as mobile home parks, gated communities and neighborhoods. By handling the entire process, they are a tremendous help to the food bank.
The Gleaners by Jean Francois Millet
Continued on page 4.
Continued on page 4.
“Helping Make Food Banking
Better Since 1984”
1-800-445-19142100 North Central Avenue, Suite 230Phoenix, Arizona 85004-1400www.azfoodbanks.org
OUR MISSIONTo deliver food and quality services to food banks and foster relationships in support of our commitment to eliminate hunger.
2007 - 2008 Board of Directors
President: Robert Evans,United Food Bank
Vice President: Bill CarnegieCommunity Food Bank
Secretary / Treasurer: Mary Jo Swartz, MSWRetired AZ Dept. of Economic Security
Kelly Barr, JDSalt River Project
Angela Bellan, MARetired School & Hospital Administrator
Douglas Bobo,Retired City of Phoenix Parks & Recreation
Kelli Donley, MPHEsperanca, Inc.
Christina Doyle, RDRetired Roosevelt School District
Jonathan James, JDPerkins, Coie, Brown & Bain, P.A.
Sharon Pierson, BSDesert Mission Food Bank
Susan Riedel, MBAModern Woodmen of America
Megan Riley, CPAOneNeck IT Services Corp.
Ann Rosing, MPHArizona Partnership for Children
Jo Ellen Serey,Serey/Jones Publishers, Inc.
Terry Shannon, MBASt. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance
Yolanda Soto,Borderland Food Bank
Ronna Sue Stubbs,Yuma Community Food Bank
Sister Frances Vista, MSWSt. Jude Food Bank
Dear Friends,
This issue of FOOD LINES celebrates a successful Arizona tradition, gleaning. Gleaning, the picking of the last of the crop or the leavings, is as old as Biblical times but has grown to mean substantial gathering of nutritious product in Arizona. The Arizona Statewide Gleaning Project, a program of the Association of Arizona Food Banks, is nationally recognized for bringing nutritious product to statewide food banks, and through them to needy families. The Project was established in 1993 to build on existing efforts in backyard gleaning, maximize the food banks’ access to large quantities (semi truckloads) of product and improve the efficiency of the collection system.
Today the Project daily dispatches two tractor-trailers and four extra trailers for rotation purposes to growers, packers, wholesalers in and beyond Arizona to bring largely donated product to Arizona food banks – 59.1 million pounds last fiscal year! Taking advantage of our proximity to the rich produce growing areas of Yuma, California’s Imperial Valley and Mexico has resulted in nutritious fresh produce accounting for 60% of the product we deliver to food banks.
Collaboration is key to the success of the Project. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and Shamrock Foods volunteer trucking support, state and county correctional inmates volunteer to pick crops that generous growers plant specifically for the Project and the LDS Mesa Cannery helps repackage large quantities into family sized portions. These are only a few of the partners engaged in helping get food to food banks.
The Project also serves as the Arizona “cluster head” for America’s Second Harvest, a national network of food banks. In this capacity the Project is alerted to the availability of product nationally. Staff coordinates the access and secures the transporting of the food banks’ preferred product.
All these functions of accessing and delivering product emphasize securing the most nutritionally rich product while controlling costs. As food prices increase, donations from some sources are declining so the Project is more assertive in seeking sources. On the cost side our contracted trucking services, including the ever more expensive diesel fuel, are central to this Project and now cost $6,500 - $6,900 a week. Because hunger in this country of plenty is simply unacceptable, the Project will continue to collaborate with great partners, create new approaches and keep the focus on its role in alleviating hunger in Arizona.
The Project is operating in the most critical time for food banks I have seen in twenty years. Arizona is in recession and economists tell us not to expect a quick reversal. Record numbers of foreclosures, job losses, and bankruptcies combined with rising fuel, food, and health care costs have moved many vulnerable Arizonans from security to crisis to food banks. Can the Association turn this whole picture around? No – not by ourselves. Can the Arizona Statewide Gleaning Project make a difference? With your help, YES! Please join with other generous supporters and help us bring food to food banks reaching hungry families throughout the state.
In gratitude for all you do,
Ginny HildebrandExecutive Director
AAFB CREDIT CARD DONATION FORM2100 North Central Ave., #230 Phoenix, AZ 85004
Tel: 800-445-1914 Fax: 602-528-3838
YES! I want a hunger free Arizona. Please charge my one time tax-deductible contribution in the
amount of $___________________ to my credit card.
I would like to be a monthly donor by using my credit card. I authorize AAFB to make a monthly deduction from my credit card in the amount of $____________ on the
5th or 20th (circle one) of the month starting _______________________. This authorization will remain in effect until I notify AAFB in writing that I wish to discontinue the contributions.
Simply check the card type, fill in your card number, expiration date, 3-digit security code from the back of your card, and sign this form. Then just clip and mail in the enclosed envelope.
Thank you for your donation!
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Questions? Please call our Director of Development at (602) 528-3434, ext. 18.
(602) 528-0740“A program of the Association
of Arizona Food Banks”
ARIZONA STATEWIDEGLEANING PROJECT
Why Gleaning?By Jami Kakinuma, Arizona Statewide Gleaning Project
With fuel and food prices continuing to rise steadily, food banks and local social service agencies in Arizona are seeing a lot more people coming to them for assistance, including many who have never asked for assistance before.
Food banks are also being “crunched” by the rising fuel and food prices. With the public’s need up and donations down, the food banks have to purchase food for distribution at a much higher percentage than in the past.
This is why it is more important than ever to be able to obtain donated, fresh, nutritious produce through the process of gleaning and get it to Arizona’s food banks who distribute
massive quantities of food to hungry Arizonans.
When we encounter tough economic times such as these, people’s food choices become limited, they don’t make as many healthy food choices which then impacts their health and well being, not to mention the added stress of day-to-day living.
Fresh produce that can be distributed in emergency food boxes, through food buying cooperative programs and through other programs can help to bring vitamin-rich fresh fruits and vegetables to people who otherwise would do without.
As long as there is fresh produce in the fields, yards and orchards, there will be a need for gleaning and the Arizona Statewide Gleaning Project looks forward to meeting that need in all its changing forms.
In the end, over 800,000 pounds of potatoes were salvaged before the fields had to be plowed under. However, something much more important came from the project: the state’s food banks realized how beneficial it was to work together in this way. The gleaning coalition was born.
Gleaning is still a key component of our program; it simply has a different
The volume of calls we receive is considerable so to have this extra self-managed help is a blessing.
Some donors are able to glean the fruit from their trees and only need our assistance with providing and picking up the collection containers. We are grateful to these donors for their donation of fruit, time and labor.
There are even some donors who are able to glean the fruit and deliver it directly to the food bank. Collection bins are set up outside our warehouse so that donors may drop off their fruit at a time convenient to them. Again, we are grateful for their generosity and hard work.
Regardless of the procedure, United Food Bank is extremely fortunate to have so many generous donors and volunteers to rescue the nutritious fruit so that those who are in need can benefit. Through the generosity of all those involved, United Food Bank received and shared with other food banks 1,621,189 pounds of oranges, grapefruit and lemons during the 2008 citrus season!
face. CFB no longer employs a year-round gleaning coordinator. Jean has moved on to a position working with the food bank’s agencies, which still keeps her traveling but out of the fields.
This year about 95,000 pounds of citrus alone were gleaned. Used in every program, citrus greatly increases the nutritional value of the food we distribute. All of it comes from people’s backyards
or remnants of large orchards that are now part of housing developments. Many of our donors choose to glean the citrus themselves and have the food bank pick it up.
“They’re just glad to share it; many of them call year after year,” said Community Food Security Center Director Varga Garland. For five years the gleaning project had been managed by the center. This year during peak growing season—January to April—the center employed a full-time gleaning coordinator to work with local gardeners. For the previous four years, volunteers from the Mennonite Volunteer Service took on the job full-time.
A big boost to the program is the volunteer group Iskash*taa Refugee Harvesting Network. This local group assists the food bank in gleaning and keeps a large portion of the citrus to distribute among African refugee families.
Fresh Produce is the Key . . . Cont.
How Backyard Gleaning Benefits Food Banks . . . Cont.
What to Give Father?
Father’s Day – June 15th
Make a contribution to the Association of Arizona Food Banks to honor Dad and help bring food to needy Arizona families. Just use the envelope enclosed in this FOOD LINES. We will send him an acknowledgement of your thoughtful gift and wish him Happy Father’s Day.
Western Refining has donated 12,000 gallons of diesel fuel to the Association of Arizona Food Banks! This generous donation is a five to six month supply for our Arizona Statewide Gleaning Project tractor-trailers and will facilitate the delivery of up to 20 million pounds of food to statewide food banks. Kevin Goode, Vice President of Western Refining Wholesale, said their Charitable Contributions Committee recommended the donation and he is very pleased the company has this opportunity to help bring food to needy Arizona families in these difficult times. Thank you Western Refining for your corporate generosity!
Western Refining Donates Diesel Fuel
Nonprofit Org.U.S. Postage
PAIDPhoenix, AZ
Permit No. 1289
3rd class mail NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
to:
a newsletter of Association of Arizona Food Banks2100 N. Central Ave., Suite 230 • Phoenix, AZ 85004
AAFB is funded by donations and is partially funded by the Arizona Department of Economic Security – Office of Community Programs and Innovative Partnerships. Points of view are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the Department. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the AAFB must make reasonable accommodation to allow a person with a disability to take part in a program, service, or activity. For example, this means that if necessary, the AAFB must provide sign language interpreters for people who are deaf, a wheelchair accessible location, or enlarged print materials. It also means that the AAFB will take any other reasonable action that allows you to take part in and understand a program or activity, including making reasonable changes to an activity. If you believe that you will not be able to understand or take part in a program or activity because of your disability, please let us know of your disability needs in advance if at all possible. Please contact AAFB at 602-528-3434.
Wells Fargo Annual Food Drive
During the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons, food-collection bins spring up across the state, helping to fill the shelves of organizations that feed the needy. By summertime, those bins have long disappeared, and the stocks of food on the organizations’ shelves are nearly depleted.
This summer, Wells Fargo is once again teaming up with local community food banks across Arizona to help re-fill those shelves. In the Valley, Wells Fargo will collect food for St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, United Food Bank and Desert Mission Food Bank. In Tucson, Wells Fargo will collect food for the Community Food Bank.
From July 1 to 15, collection bins will be placed in the 360-plus Wells Fargo Community Banking stores throughout the state. People who wish to donate cash can send checks to the Association of Arizona Food Banks, 2100 N. Central Ave., Ste. 230, Phoenix, AZ 85004.
“When we asked for companies to help with summer food drives, Wells Fargo stepped up and offered to take a lead role,” said Ginny Hildebrand, Executive Director, Association of Arizona Food Banks. “Wells Fargo has a long record of supporting our organization and other service agencies in the Valley, and we’re pleased to work with them again on this project.”
