As we move from fall into winter, the staff here at Glean Kentucky is in the midst of many positive changes.  As you may have read above, Gaby Gonzalez has come on as our Development Assistant, which we are all very excited about.  Gaby is the second former Americorps Vista that we have hired over the last several months.  Madison McRill, also formerly a Vista with Glean Kentucky,  was hired into my previous position as Central Kentucky Field Coordinator, just a few months back and is settling in nicely.

That brings me to the change in my own role with Glean Kentucky.  When Ben became Executive Director I was tasked with taking over his position as Program Director.  And I couldn’t be more excited about it!  After several years of working as a Field Coordinator for Glean Kentucky, it’s been very rewarding to step back and begin to take a wider view of our operations.  I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful crew to work with.  From our Executive Director, Ben Southworth, to Bekah Worster and Gaby Gonzalez in Development, to our Field Coordinators Jerilyn Bristow and Madison McRill, we have a fantastic team to move forward with.  And that’s not even mentioning our board members and the folks who work on our committees.

We’ve been able to do some great things so far this year.  Thanks to Jerilyn, our South Central Region operations are taking off, and thanks to Stepping Stone Farm, Reed Valley Orchard, the scores of volunteers that came out to glean with us this fall and our Central KY Field Coordinator, Madison McRill, we were able to send thousands of pounds of apples to our community partners, Feeding EKY, for distribution to the flood impacted communities of Eastern Kentucky (you can read more about that in Madison’s article).  And we’ll have a very special announcement to make about our newest region of service in North Central Kentucky in our end of year newsletter!

We’re looking forward to finishing out the year strong with the Good Giving Challenge this week and riding the great momentum that we have going into 2023.