MORE ABOUT

HUNGER & FOOD WASTE

Engaging Our Community

At Glean Kentucky, we feel it’s important to engage our community in discussions

about hunger. For more information about hunger in Kentucky and America,

please check out these resources.

Hunger in America

Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief organization, has conducted the most comprehensive study of hunger in America every four years since 1993. Like the prior studies, Hunger in America 2014 (HIA 2014), the latest iteration, documents the critical role that the charitable food assistance network plays in supporting struggling families in the United States.

Map the Meal Gap

Every community in the country is home to people who struggle with hunger. Since federal nutrition programs don’t reach everyone in need, food banks help fill the gap. Learn more about local food insecurity by exploring data from Feeding America’s annual Map the Meal Gap study. When we better understand hunger, we can help end hunger.

Reducing Food Waste: Its Effect on Climate Change

A third of the food raised or prepared does not make it from farm or factory to fork. Producing uneaten food squanders a whole host of resources—seeds, water, energy, land, fertilizer, hours of labor, financial capital—and generates greenhouse gases at every stage—including methane when organic matter lands in the global rubbish bin. The food we waste is responsible for roughly 8 percent of global emissions.

Feeding Kentucky

Feeding Kentucky’s seven member food banks serve all 120 Kentucky counties in partnership with a network of over 800 local food pantries and shelters. Last year, their members distributed 86 million pounds of food and grocery products — enough for 72 million meals for our struggling neighbors. They reach an estimated 1 in 7 of all Kentuckians each year.

Gleaning in the Cedar Valley

Gleaning is a term describing the act of either picking, cleaning or sorting produce that would otherwise be wasted. It is a practice long known to Europe, and in the past thirty years has gained immense popularity among non-profit organizations throughout the United States. The Cedar Valley Gleaning Program (CVGP) had its pilot-year in the fall of 2014. This thesis seeks to improve the efficacy of the CVGP through examining both the pilot year, and a qualitative study of gleaning operations worldwide, to answer the question: How can gleaning become an effective tool for communities in the Cedar Valley.

Finding Other Ways to Help

 

Volunteer with Glean Kentucky!

Volunteer gleaners are the core of what we do at Glean Kentucky. Serving as the vital link between food waste and food insecurity, gleaners gather up fresh produce from a source (grocery store, farm, etc.) and immediately deliver it to a recipient site (food pantry, hunger agency, neighborhood ambassador, etc.) where it can be distributed to those in need.

Donate Produce and/or Money

Glean Kentucky collects excess fresh fruits and vegetables from farms, orchards, farmers’ markets, grocery stores, and personal gardens, and redistributes that produce directly to feeding programs in Central Kentucky. Our gleaned produce provides nutrition to thousands of individuals and families, including children, the elderly, refugees, domestic violence survivors, veterans, the homeless, and more.

 

Supporting Glean Kentucky means supporting 105 local organizations, food pantries, hot meal programs, school backpack programs and more in Bourbon, Clark, Fayette, Franklin, Jessamine, Madison, Scott, and Woodford Counties. More fresh food is out there. With your donation, we can feed even more. Be a hero for the hungry – make your contribution today!