Gone Gleaning

The week before school started I coordinated an activity for our ward's Primary children to go gleaning for the Second Harvest Food Bank. This is a wonderful activity run by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, a non-profit lay Catholic organization. They plant and grow vegetables and fruit on land donated by local cities, then rely on volunteers to come and "glean" the produce left between regular pickings. This food is then taken and used in the food bank.

Our local site is the Incredible Edible Field in Irvine. Sam is the man who runs the program, and he is great. He is a patient instructor and is wonderful at motivating the kids to work. The kids love searching for the produce which is ripe and ready for picking, getting down in the dirt, finding ladybugs and other creatures, and filling up their blue baskets to the top. This year we really lucked out with the weather, after a week of scorching heat, Thursday morning was overcast and close to cool.

Here's our group getting the orientation talk from Sam.
today's first crop - cucumbers. Remember, pull
and break the stem near the top, don't pull out the whole plant

Henry with his cucumber

Jack and his crew filled three of these baskets

The kids work hard, and get a taste of what its like to be a farmer
(or a migrant farm worker which we see a lot of in the
strawberry fields in our area)


We gleaned bell peppers, squash, eggplant & green beans as well



one of the best parts was riding in the truck
when moving to another part of the field



at the end of our shift

All in all it was a fun activity and a good lesson in hard work, productivity and service to others.