A group of local students have been making a difference in their community.
The group comprised of Manitowoc Lincoln students, now with several graduates, have been operating a food security program called gleaning.
Group member Sophia Meisner spoke with Seehafer News to explain gleening.
She said, “In our case, gleaning is to redistribute the unused produce from the local farmers market to the Southfield Townhouse’s food pantry.”
Dillion Lukes-York expanded on that premise, saying “In general, gleaning can be defined as the collection of unused produce. That can be before or after the harvest because some farmers, they aren’t able to collect all the produce that they make, so it just spoils in the fields.”
The group began in 2018 as a Youth Advocates for Community Health Club at Washington Middle School focused on a bag lunch program at local schools, but when the program became successful and was adopted, they needed a new project.
At this time, the group drew inspiration from an Ohioan group that was gleaning farmer’s fields.
In its evolution, the group joined with 4H in 2021 to be called the University of Wisconsin Division of Extension Youth Advocates for Community Health 4H Club.
Members of the group explained when they first began, members would connect with vendors at the Manitowoc Farmer’s Market in the mornings to ask about their interest in donating leftover produce.
They would then return after the market to collect the food.
Since their familiarity with the vendors has been established the group no longer meets in the morning, Lukes-York explains their current process in the afternoons.
“We go over there probably around 12:45, the end of the market,” he revealed. “And we go around, we see if anybody is interested in donating, we collect those and we bring it over to the Southfield Townhouses and we are able to put it in the pantry and weigh it for data purposes, and from the pantry it can go to the people.”
The group also got the opportunity to attend a gleaning symposium in Milwaukee this past May where they were able to learn more about gleaning.
Another student, Mariana Ramirez-Ruiz explained that the group had found it very helpful
She noted, “We were actually looking into the tax-exempt forms for the vendors, for the market vendors, every single time they donated a specific amount of produce and there was a specific section on that.”
Now, with a majority of the members leaving, the current group has been working to advertise to the community and residents of the Southfield Townhouses to continue the project.
Those interested in a volunteer opportunity can contact Laura Apfelbeck at llapfelbeck@wisc.edu
A food access map can be found online at BrownCountyExtension.org.
