DATE: 9/12/00 CONTACT: Chip Boling, (843) 722-5940, cboling@clemson.edu Archie McRee, (843) 747-8146 Jacki Baer, (843) 881-6798, jackibaer1@aol.com Claire Bergstrom, (843) 795-5265, cbergstr@porter.portergaud.edu WRITER: Tom Lollis, (803) 284-3343, tlollis@clemson.edu Volunteers take over Extension program that helps feed hungry CHARLESTON -- Archie McRee lives with numbers that gnaw at him like the hunger that gnaws at the men, women and children served by the Lowcountry Food Bank, where he is executive director. Take this number -- about 32 million Americans are either hungry or at risk of hunger; or this one -- 13.6 million of those Americans are children; and this - 1 in 5 American children are hungry or at risk of hunger. "About 27 percent of all food that's produced in this country is thrown away," said McRee. "The issue is not having enough food, it's distribution." For seven years the Clemson Extension Service office in Charleston has helped McRee with that distribution problem by shepherding the South Carolina Gleaning Project. "Gleaning is a very Biblical term," said McRee. In the Old Testament Book of Ruth, Bo'az instructs his workers to leave some extra grain in the field for Ruth, who is gleaning the leftovers from the harvest. "Our gleaning project started in 1993," said Chip Boling, Extension agent in Charleston County. "Sunny Hanckel, a local farmer, had been impressed by a group from Harvest of Hope who had gleaned the leftover fruit from his family's tomato fields. He got a group of influential people together to discuss hunger and gleaning. Clemson wound up taking the leadership and coordination role." Boling estimated the first year's harvest at 30-40,000 lbs. Since then the total has surpassed the 1.2 million pound mark in fresh produce. That includes more than 20 types of fruits and vegetables - ranging from acorn squash, Bok Choy, strawberries and sweet corn to onions, melons, peppers, greens and tomatoes. The Lowcountry Food Bank funnels this produce and processed foods through 228 agencies in 10 counties B Beaufort, Jasper, Colleton, Hampton, Dorchester, Charleston, Berkeley, Georgetown, Williamsburg and Horry. Thanks to some dedicated volunteers Boling is making the transition this year from gleaning coordinator to adviser and mentor. Claire Bergstrom, a 5-year veteran of gleaning, has taken over as coordinator. "I felt that I should be more involved with the program because it's so important to the needy," she said. Director of community outreach at Porter Gaud School, Bergstrom began recruiting gleaners from her church, Nativity Catholic, and her school not long after her first harvest lesson from Boling in 1996. Gleaners have to recognize the difference between marketable fruits and vegetables and those which can be gleaned. "We get what is too small, too large, too ripe, misshapen or just too ugly," said Boling. "However, it all provides the same nutrition that consumers get from the perfect produce at the supermarket." "We usually have 20-22 people when we go to the fields," Bergstrom said, "but we could always use more manpower." Bergstrom recruits farmers into the gleaning program, keeps track of their harvests, schedules volunteers for the fieldwork and coordinates things with Michelle Bellemare, her liaison at the food bank. Her gleaners use the food bank's refrigerated truck, recently donated by Piggly Wiggly, to help preserve produce quality when they go into the fields on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. "This summer, from the end of May to the beginning of August, our gleaners picked 13 tons of produce," she said, most of it from farms on Johns and Wadmalaw islands. That includes 7,000 pounds the final day of gleaning for tomatoes in mid-July. Charleston County Master Gardener Jacki Baer came up with a way to expand the program's reach. "She had the idea to glean at the Mt. Pleasant Farmers Market," said Bergstrom. "My son Tim and I prepared a tax form so the farmers who donate can claim a tax break for what they give us." Since June vendors have donated 300-500 pounds of produce at the end of business each Tuesday night, and the total for the summer had reached around 9,000 pounds by early August. "We also found a very generous farm stand on John's Island - Rosebank Farms, run by Sidi Limehouse and Louise Bennett," said Bergstrom. "We visit Rosebank every other day between 9 and 10 a.m. to pick up produce and bread which they save for us from the previous day's leftovers." Often that amounts to as much as 300 pounds of food. "Every day we have produce that's not sellable, according to our standards, and we are delighted to have something to do with it," said Bennett. "It's a great project," said Limehouse. "The volunteers do a great job coming to pick up the produce. If it helps somebody, that's the way it should be." Now Baer is proposing to extend gleaning to home gardeners through a program called Plant a Row (PAR) for the Hungry. She heard garden writer Jim Wilson speak about it in May at the Southeast Regional Master Gardener Conference. "This program just lit my fire," she said. The project, sponsored by the Garden Writers Association of America, asks gardeners to plant an extra row of fruits and vegetables to donate to local food banks. She organized a meeting of Charleston area community leaders for Sept. 19 to get PAR off the ground. Baer envisions Master Gardeners serving as resource people to help gardeners with problems and helping pick up produce to deliver it to the food bank. She would also like to see PAR gardens undertaken by churches, schools and neighborhoods. "We also hope to have a demonstration garden at the Coastal Research and Education Center on U.S. Highway 17, with the produce grown there also being donated to the food bank," she said. "We are in the very early stages of this program, but I am very enthusiastic about what we can do to provide good nutrition to the hungry," she said. END