October 9, 2013 Volume 9 • Number 41 50¢ Newsstand Price
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New Gleaning Abundance program to fill food GAP This fall the Kamloops Food Policy Council is officially launching the Gleaning Abundance Program (GAP) for the greater Kamloops area, addressing the issue of local food security with an organized effort to ‘glean’ food that would otherwise be wasted, in particular perishable food from local farm harvests, household gardens and fruit trees. “We have so much food in Kamloops, on trees that, if not picked, is going to waste,” says Laura Kalina, co-chair and treasurer of the Kamloops Food Policy Council. The GAP recently received a three-year, $45,000 grant from the Interior Health Authority’s Community Food Action Initiative to coordinate a regional food security, food gleaning and food recovery initiative that will begin in Kamloops. The project expects to sign up 200 households to glean from. The GAP brings insured volunteer pickers to gleaning sites free of charge, where they harvest, or glean, edible produce and share it with owners, food agencies and amongst themselves. This equal one-third division of food resources is a win/win/win for all involved in the program and a couple of weeks into the project they are well on their way.
10-year-old Julian Coleman-Hilke is the Gleaning Abundance Project’s youngest volunteer. Here he is with some of his bounty, during a media event where the three-year pilot project was announced.
“We are on the ground right now – there are people picking as we speak,” says gleaning project coordinator Krystal Williams at a recent
event launching the program. “As of this morning, we’ve picked over 800lbs of fruit already this year and donated over 500lbs of that to the Food Bank and other
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outreach organizations.” Those results came from the efforts and participation of 75 volunteers and 50 registered homes with fruit trees to contribute. When volunteers and/or owners choose not to keep their shares, the total harvest is distributed to food security agencies that use the resources to empower and facilitate healthy meals and healthy lifestyles and transitions for low-income families, individuals, the working poor and the homeless. The community kitchen is already making good use of the food they’ve received from the initial harvest. “Last Thursday night I had 11 people in the kitchen and we canned 87 jars of tomato sauce. Everyone paid $5 and took home a dozen jars of tomato sauce,” says Dede Bone of Interior Community Service’s Community Kitchens, highlighting the obvious benefits of coordinating an effort like this. “This program is huge for community kitchens – now instead of watching it fall off the tree, or me going to collect it, I can just call Krystal and she will bring it over!” Expansion goals are already in place to include more households and volunteers, as well as the development of a best practices – continued on page 2
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