Local vegetables are now available to more residents in need, thanks to the Chatham-Kent Gleaning Project.
"The purpose of the group is to go out and work with local farmers who may have leftover crops," says Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit Registered Dietician Lyndsay Davidson. "Try to be able to get those crops out of the fields and into the hands of people that need it."
Rather than plowing the crop under, farmers can call the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit. That's when trained volunteers will come out to pick what's left.
"We work with them to find out when the best time is to come out and glean the field to pick whatever is leftover," says Davidson. "We bring the volunteers out with us, we bring all of the baskets and everything else. Really the farmer just needs to give us permission to go out in the field."
This is the third year for the project, and in the past they've picked squash, potatoes, peppers, sweet corn, onions, and watermelon.
"We harvest as much of the produce as we can, which often times doesn't look like we've done much to the field, but ends up being quite a bit for us," says Davidson. "Then we drop it off at local organizations across Chatham-Kent. So whether it's soup kitchens, food banks, different community groups that are willing to accept it."
Davidson says they are always in need of more fields to glean, and volunteers who are willing to help. For more on the gleaning project, CLICK HERE.