With the help of gleaners, produce from Davidson Farmer's Market and local farmers finds its way to those in need.

By MARY JANE LEACH
Davidson Farmer’s Market

It has always bothered me that despite the abundance of food grown in our area, there are some folks who don’t have access to it.

A couple of years ago, someone from the Society of St. Andrews contacted the Davidson Farmers Market to see if they could promote their volunteer gleaning efforts at the market one Saturday. The Society of St. Andrews “gleans” from farms with a volunteer corps that picks extra produce that is still good to eat, but either in excess or cosmetically imperfect.

The society gleans about 5 million pounds of food annually in North Carolina. Three or four farms from the Davidson Farmer’s Market allow SOSA volunteers to glean. Just one of these – Barbee Farms of Concord – supplied 26,000 pounds of food last year. Tomatoes, corn, melons, pumpkins, greens – these gleanings happen all year.

Children are welcome. Many churches attend and most of the gleanings take place on Saturdays and occasional Fridays. (Sign up at www.endhunger.org/northcarolina ^[1])

The food SOSA gleans goes onto trucks that take it to their partner distributing organizations – soup kitchens and food pantries. It is used almost immediately.

95-YEAR-OLD GLEANER

Here in Davidson, some residents have benefited directly from these donations. One person who knows where the food needs to is 95-year-old Cecelia Connor, who was recommended to us by SOSA director Marilyn Marks. Apparently, Mrs. Connor had been distributing gleaned food to families and individuals on Davidson’s West Side for 10 years. Davidson Farmer’s Market needed someone to take extra food from the market on Saturdays and distribute it to these families, and Mrs. Connor answered the call.

She would come by at 12:30, as the farmers were packing up, accompanied by her son and grandson who drive her. We helped them load up a trunk full, or a back seat full, or in the fall sometimes only one or two cases. The Connors took this to their church, Reeves Temple AME Zion, to be distributed on Sundays.

Once in the late fall last year, I asked Mrs. Connor to attend our fall lunch after the market. She came to give her regrets, since she had an event at Ada Jenkins she had to go to. But she gave me a present, a jar of homemade chowchow that she had canned, her contribution to the potluck, and a quart jar of tomatoes (for me). These were some of what was left of the food she had collected and distributed. I couldn’t believe it. She wasted nothing. She thanked me, then and many more times, in her shaky but clear handwriting.

This year we had SOSA volunteers pick up the food from the market and take it to Mrs. Connor at the church so she didn’t have to make the trip. She sent word that she appreciated that. She always sent word that she appreciated the food, too. Mrs. Connor is slowing down these days, not canning as much as she used to, and I worry that one day the folks she helps may not get what they need from the farmers.

FARMERS HELP

It’s been only recently that I began to see farmers in a different way than I did before. Through my experiences living in an agricultural community in western North Carolina, I saw firsthand the care that farmers give to their communities and to each other, especially during haying time.

They are there when snowy roads need plowing (anyone’s road, not just theirs), rounding up each other’s cows and mending fences, helping a new farmer get a start by plowing up the first field without being asked. And when asked what I could do in return, a “nanner pudding” was all that was required to make us even. But, I realize we’ll never be even, because a farmer of this ilk does not need anything in return. It is part of their makeup to do what’s needed and work into the night when the hay needs to come in. Look out for your neighbor. Can the leftover food. Waste nothing.

They are keepers of a major part of our heritage, not only our regional foodways and agricultural history, the land, but the sense of responsibility and forthrightness that comes from a culture of interdependence, forgiving and forgetting, remembering and tending, each in its time.

It is right to make the call to the gleaners, when the food is on the vine, not rotting but just right for the picking. Send your best. Working with these farmers and SOSA gives me hope that this good food will find its way to more people that need it, and with hard work, into the “food deserts” of Charlotte, where 73,000 people live in 60 identified areas with little or no access to fresh food.

What I understand better now, especially during this traditional season of harvest and plenty, is the link between these fragile systems of food distribution and the financial success of the farmer (this is where we come in). They are still there, taking care of us all. But they need our help, because there are fewer of them now and the job is greater. They’re going to need their neighbors to bring in this load of hay before the rain comes. Are you part of the community? Hop on the truck and let’s go.

ABOUT THE MARKET

The Davidson Farmers Market is open all year long – 1st and 3rd Saturdays Nov./Dec., and 2nd and 4th in January – March. Opening weekly in April 2011.

To get involved: email: info@davidsonfarmersmarket.org ^[2]; www.knowyourfarms.org ^[3]; SOSA at www.endhunger.org/nc_glean ^[4]; the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Food Policy Council on Facebook.

Mary Jane Leach is manager of the Davidson Farmer’s Market