Archive

History of Pierce County Gleaning Project

14.01.2022 in History

A Jesuit Volunteer started the Pierce County Gleaning Project (PCGP) in 2009 at St. Leo’s Food Connection, (St. Leo’s), a large food bank located in downtown Tacoma. In the past, Washington State University (WSU) Extension ran a gleaning program in Pierce County, but that ended in the early…

Backyard Fruit Tree Gleaning with Emergency Food Network

14.01.2022 in Fruit Tree Harvest

Drawing inspiration from Seattle gleaning groups such as Lettuce Link’s Community Fruit Tree Harvest and City Fruit, the PCGP coordinator organized a fruit harvest in five neighborhoods in Tacoma, based on neighborhood council boundaries. While the second year of harvesting fruit trees has reaped more…

Community Giving Gardens with Emergency Food Network

11.01.2022 in Farms/ Gardens

The Share the Harvest program coordinator (job description here) supports interested community gardens in developing plots in a community garden designated for a local food bank/shelter also known as “Giving Gardens”. While many counties may not be able to support a new position, the Share…

Nutrition and Cooking Education with Emergency Food Network

10.01.2022 in Education

It is important to not only increase the availability of fresh, local produce in food banks but also to help educate the food bank population on how to cook, prepare, and store gleaned produce.  This is particularly important when gleaning more unusual crops. First and…

Registering Donors with Emergency Food Network

10.01.2022 in Donor Relations

Fruit Tree Donor Relations New Fruit Tree donors hear about the program through neighbor donors and word of mouth, tabling at events, newspaper articles, and community talks. A local newspaper highlighted the project in 2012 and brought a handful of new donors. The project has…

Volunteer Relations in Moses Lake

07.01.2022 in Volunteer Relations

Outreach and Recruitment Volunteer outreach and recruitment in Moses Lake were done through social and traditional media outlets. The local radio station, local newspapers, and online news sources were instrumental in spreading the word about the programs leading to volunteer recruitment. Facebook has provided a…

Marketing and Visibility with Community Services of Moses Lake

07.01.2022 in Visibility

Community Services of Moses Lake did not to turn down any gleaning opportunity the first year. If the donation created saturation for a specific type of produce locally, efforts were made to distribute large quantities of that commodity to another part of the state using…

U Pick Farms with Community Services of Moses Lake

07.01.2022 in U-Pick Gleaning

The greater Moses Lake area has quite a few u-pick farms that have opened in recent years and are still struggling to get off of the ground. By allowing Community Services of Moses Lake to glean, a u-pick farm is able to increase their publicity…