Gleaning

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During the harvest season, the Gleaning/Food Access program donates 10,000 pounds of produce per week to emergency food resource providers.

Hudson Valley farmers donate produce to feed people facing food insecurity in the Hudson Valley. Cornell Cooperative Extension of Orange County employees and volunteers visit local farms to harvest crops that are not being sold. Often, the produce we take is too small or not the right shape or color to meet the high standards of the market. However, it is always fresh, edible, and nutritious. The GleanMobile, our refrigerated box truck, delivers the produce to the Hudson Valley Food Bank and to local food pantries, soup kitchens, and community organizations. We rely on volunteers and donors! If you’re a farmer, consider donating unmarketable fresh fruits and vegetables. Any amount helps out. If you’d like to volunteer, donate your time. Gleanings are scheduled throughout the growing season. Please contact us!

Stiles Najac, Food Security Community Liaison SRN28@cornell.edu

Donors

Agricultural producers in Orange County and the surrounding region donate produce to our Gleaning Program. We either go out into the fields to harvest the produce, sometimes with crews of volunteers, or pick up excess produce or items that may not meet the strict standards of the market. We package and then transport the produce to emergency food resource providers in Orange County. We pick up the fresh fruits and vegetables in our refrigerated box truck, the GleanMobile.

Past donations include sweet corn, lettuce, squash, apples, tomatoes, peppers, and other fruits and vegetables.

Despite generous donations of 10,000 pounds per week on average during the harvest season, we have yet to fulfill emergency food resource providers’ demand for fresh produce. If you’re interested in donating this season, contact Stiles or Dan at (845) 344-1234 or email us at srn28@cornell.edu or mkv24@cornell.edu.

As a donor, you may be eligible to receive New York State tax credit.  Click here for more information.  (This information is updated yearly.)

Click here to read Donate Your Excess Food and Get a Tax Deduction by Stiles Najac.

Volunteers

We rely on volunteers during peak season to assist us with everything from repacking produce to going out into the field to harvest with us. We welcome volunteers of all ages and abilities. We schedule gleanings throughout the season. Check our events page for scheduled in-field gleanings!

Regional Efforts

In collaboration with regional agencies and organizations, we are able to increase the impact and resiliency of food security and gleaning programs in the Greater Hudson Valley Region. Below are a few of our dedicated partner organizations.

Food Bank of the Hudson Valley

The Food Bank of the Hudson Valley works to alleviate hunger and prevent food waste throughout six counties of the Lower Hudson Valley – Dutchess, Ulster, Sullivan, Orange, Rockland and Putnam.

Working in partnership with the food industry, the Food Bank collects donated food and distributes it to people in need through a regional network of 400 member agencies – including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, day care centers, senior programs, rehabilitation programs and programs for the disabled.

In 2017, the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley distributed 16 million pounds of food (including 3 million pounds of fresh produce) to 130,000 food-insecure people throughout the region.

Click here for the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley website.

Click here for the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley Facebook page.

Contact 845-534-5344 or  info@foodbankofhudsonvalley.org.

Farm to Food Pantry

In collaboration with the Rondout Valley Growers Association, UlsterCorps and the Bruderhof Community, the program addresses food insecurity by engaging local farmers to donate locally grown produce and training volunteers to glean, process, and distribute nutritious food to the network food pantries, feeding programs, and shelters in Ulster and surrounding counties.

The collaborative increases the nutritious food available to local food pantries throughout the County; expands the availability of nutritious meals for children during the summer; increases the capacity for storage and distribution, both centrally and for individual pantries; decreases the amount of food discarded or wasted; develops new relationships which make additional food available; distributes food through the Feeding America program; informs the community of the availability of food resources by maintaining a current map of food pantries throughout the county in English and Spanish, and improves communication and coordination between countywide and local providers.

Click here for the Farm to Food Pantry website.

Contact: Beth McLendon at (845) 481-0331 or  bmclendon@familyofwoodstockinc.org.

Long Table Harvest

The mission of Long Table Harvest is to cultivate social and economic equality in the local food system through dynamic, inclusive and creative collaborations across our diverse rural community.

Goals:

• We aim to promote systemic change in the development of a resilient local food system by prioritizing collaborations and partnerships around:
• Consistently connecting farm surpluses to emergency food sites and community based organizations while closing the food loop through sustainable surplus redistribution.
• Increasing regional capacity to improve accessibility and cultural appropriateness in the local food system.
• Creating greater exposure to the valuable work of our local farmers.
• Cultivating awareness of and capacity to change inequalities in the food system by directly engaging community members through opportunities for hands-on reciprocity and creating a county-wide network for resource, knowledge and wealth-sharing.

Click here for the Long Table Harvest website.

Click here for the Long Table Harvest Facebook page.

Contact: Audrey Berman at 347-860-0114 or  audrey@longtableharvest.org.

FeedHV

FeedHV is a regional food rescue and gleaning network dedicated to meeting the needs of neighbors while mitigating the impacts of food waste. The concept evolved out of community dialogues with farmers, volunteers, nonprofit agencies and key stakeholders. Through our web-based and mobile application powered by ChowMatch, FeedHV links food donors of prepared but unserved food and fresh produce (including farms, restaurants, catering services, grocery stores, hospitals, universities and more) to nonprofit organizations with food assistance programs (such as food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters) through the efforts of a network of volunteers who transport, glean and process donated food. With this technological solution, FeedHV enhances and streamlines the good work of businesses, agencies, and organizations already doing food recovery work.

FeedHV is a partnership between Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley and Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development Corporation.

Click here for the FeedHV website. Click here for the FeedHV Facebook page.

Contact: Carrie Jones Ross at 518-432-5360, ext. 402 or  info@FeedHV.org

Second Chance Foods

Second Chance Foods, based in Putnam County, has a Farm to Food Pantry program. They glean from local farms (including farm seconds), bring this produce into their licensed, commercial kitchen and process & preserve it for local food programs to distribute to their clients. Volunteers are always needed to help glean, transport and process the produce.

Click here for the Second Chance Foods website.

Contact: Martha Elder at 914-261-0797 or  Info@secondchancefoods.org

Are you a farmer and want to contribute?

We pick up the fresh fruits and vegetables in our refrigerated box truck, the GleanMobile. Get more information on this website: Produce Donations

Last updated October 24, 2023