About the Gleaning Network of Texas

The Gleaning Network

The Network brings together growers, individuals, groups and agencies willing to be part of the solution by salvaging produce to alleviate hunger. The Gleaning Network of Texas is working to expand it network throughout the state and your help is needed!

Gleaners
Gleaners are the people who donate their time to make The Gleaning Network run. Gleaners are volunteers who perform a variety of options:
♣ travel to fields and orchards for gleaning
♣ make weekly pick-ups and deliveries
♣ coordinate groups of gleaners
♣ build relationships with growers near by
♣ speak to groups on the benefits of gleaning and food stewardship
Gleaners are people of all ages. Even young children with their families can glean for others.

Growers
The Gleaning Network operates through the generosity of growers who donate fields and orchards for gleaning. We accept all kinds of fruits and vegetables. We also accept rejected but still edible tractor-trailer loads of produce. Growers also receive benefits such as a deducting the donation from taxes, freedom from liability for accidents to gleaners (TX Civil Practice & Remedies Code 76.004), and knowing that crops are not going to waste.

Agencies
Today, even small towns have some sort of safety net for residents. If you are involved in an agency that provides food assistance, let us know. We may be already working with that agency, but if we aren’t we want to include it in our network. Although there never seems to be enough to go around, we always try to distribute to as many agencies as we can.
The network brings together growers, individuals, groups, and agencies willing to be part of the solution by salvaging produce to alleviate hunger. The Gleaning Network of Texas is working to expand its network throughout the state.

Building Relationships
The Gleaning Network of Texas is all about building relationships between providers, volunteers, and agencies as entities, but it is also about building relationships between the individuals who make up those entities. When working together salvaging produce, traditional barriers fall away as we realize that we all participate in life. Regardless of backgrounds, we all have stories to tell, especially stories about food. Standing around a bin of grapefruit or picking peas in the field, we find common experiences, common places, or even common people.

Field gleaning with The Gleaning Network also provides an excellent opportunity for children and youth to experience a little bit of nature. Our urbanizing and globalizing world provides the average person fewer opportunities to be in touch with the dirt from which our food comes. Field gleaning provides an opportunity to better understand what it takes to get our produce to the grocery store. It also allows children to see first hand how fruit and vegetables grow. Then they know that sweet potatoes don’t grow on trees!