What We Do
Gleaning began more than 6,000 years ago as an honorable means for non-landowners to provide for their families. Farmers allowed people to pick up, or glean, the remaining produce after the harvest had been gathered. We have revived the traditional farm glean and added commercial gleaning.
Our Mission
Gleaners Pantry is a Whatcom County, non-profit association, dedicated to helping our local families become more self-sufficient.
We have no paid staff or administrators. We operate and depend solely with help from our volunteers.
Gleaners assist each other by maintaining our facility, sorting produce, trading recipes, knowledge and skills. It is our goal to help build successful and healthy families within our community. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to work for what they receive. We help our members lower grocery costs, learn new skills, assist farmers in cleaning up their fields and reduce the amount of food going to landfills. Several days a week, we gather to sort through food that would otherwise go to waste and distribute it to members. We also organize seasonal farm gleans for our members, going to pick berries, apples and other produce that would be wasted.
“When you reap your harvest in your field, and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.”
How it works
Our volunteers go to stores or farms around Whatcom County and pick up food that can’t be used by the stores. That might mean that the apples have a few spots on them, the bread is a day old, the milk only has a few days left until the expiration date, or that the store simply needed to make room for more.
Then we gather several times a week to “glean,” or to sort through the boxes of food, and see what can be salvaged. That means sorting through boxes of produce, bags of bread and pastries, and crates of dairy. We reclaim what can be used, and find a way to use the rest as animal food or compost.