Volunteer vegetable spreaders with North Okanagan Valley Gleaners (Submitted photo/Facebook)

By Pete McIntyre

feeding the hungry

Record year for Gleaners, search on for volunteers

Dec 20, 2022 | 5:00 AM

The North Okanagan Valley Gleaners is hoping to attract more volunteers so it can keep helping more people around the globe.

The society had a record breaking year in 2022, producing and shipping over 13 million servings of food overseas to feed the world’s hungry.

That comes after producing 5.1 million servings of food in 2021.

Vegetable cleaners at North Okanagan Valley Gleaners (Submitted photo/NOVG)

Volunteers use surplus vegetables, grown in Canada, to make a nutritious dehydrated soup mix which is sent to third world countries. Apples are also dehydrated, packaged and shipped as nutritious snacks. Other products available from time to time include peas, beans, protein flakes, potato flakes and vegetable seeds.

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“”I am so proud of our volunteers,” board chair Harold Sellers said. “This amazing amount of food would be impossible to produce without them.The people of the North Okanagan, and our volunteers, are making a significant contribution to feeding those who need it most.”

Gleaners received 1.4 million pounds of donated fruit and vegetables which is also a record amount.

The group has also shipped ten sea cans full of donated medical equipment and supplies this year with the last one leaving for Eswatini, a country in southern Africa, a few weeks ago.

“Our goal for the upcoming year is to send 15 million servings of food,” Russ Phillips, plant manager, said. “With an additional eight volunteers a day, we should be able to maximize our production and meet this goal.”

The Gleaners used furniture and appliance store in Vernon also saw significant growth in donations and customers.

“The momentum just continues to grow and a big thank you to all those who both donate and buy furniture as you are all contributing to our mission of feeding the hungry,” store manager Christiane Molendyk, said.

Gleaners also donated over $40,000 worth of furniture to local residents in need this year.

To show the impact volunteering at Gleaners can have, just one four hour volunteer shift equates directly to the production of 1,400 servings of food. That is feeding two people for an entire year.

By donating four hours of your time once a week for a year, a Gleaners volunteer can contribute to the production of enough food to feed 100 people for an entire year.

“It is important for us to tell our story and get this information out into the community as good things always happen when we do,” said outreach team lead and volunteer Gene Bryant.

Bryant encourages everyone to visit their website novgleaners.org or go to their Facebook page for more details.

“We have saying at Gleaners: “Proudly keeping seniors off the street since 2007″ and we encourage more people to become involved in our work to feed the hungry.”