Ten Years of Work Has Prepared Us for Today’s Challenges!
2023 was quite a year for all of us and Community Harvest of Central Vermont (CHCV) was in the middle of it, using everything we have created over the last 10 years to step up to the challenge. It was a year of a new van, 42 crates of leeks, flood response, a bad growing season, a new facility, and 8,762 pounds of carrots gleaned.
42 crates of over-wintered leeks gleaned at Tamarack Hollow Farm
Despite the wet weather, led by leeks and carrots we gleaned 77,846 pounds from local farms and food producers. The food we recovered and donated reached about 12,070 individuals in Washington County this year, many of those individuals receiving CHCV gleaned food on a weekly basis. We maintained partnerships with 29 local recipient organizations.
In addition, we continued to collaborate with other Vermont Gleaning Collective (VGC) member organizations from around the state to move gleaned food to where it’s needed most. In 2023, through our VGC partners we received 33,275 additional pounds, adding to the quantity that we could consistently offer our local partners every month of the year.
In all, CHCV donated 106,759 pounds of food in 2023 to hungry Vermonters in need.
“The vegetables delivered to us this week were absolutely gorgeous. The best part of Tuesday is seeing the smiling faces of our community as the weekly selection is unveiled!”
— Ilene Elliott, Barre Area Senior Center Program Coordinator, our newest recipient site partner
Over the last ten years, we have donated almost 2.3 million servings of nutritious fresh local food that otherwise would have been wasted. None of this would have been possible without you and all those in the community who partnered with us and supported our work for the past ten years.
Our new van was a big help when we gleaned 8,762 pounds of carrots from this Pete’s Greens field last fall with 56 community volunteers over 7 days!
Thanks to So Many!
We’d like to send a special thanks for the generosity of so many local farmers! Thanks in particular to Rogers Farmstead for not only donating milk, yogurt, and cheese, but also generously building us our new facility to rent. We would also like to thank the 50 other farms, home growers, and other food producers that CHCV partnered with in 2023 for the thousands of pounds of nutritious food they all donated. A full list of 2023 contributing farms and food donors is listed here.
“Providing food to people in need and allowing people to access local food who otherwise wouldn't be able to is one of our missions as a farm. CHCV makes this so much more attainable and provides our produce and eggs to so many more outlets and programs than we are able to do.”
—Abdoulaye Niane of Khelcom Farm
Partnering with all these great farms is only the first step of our work. Once we hear that crops are available, we need help getting the food. 331 members of the community volunteered throughout 2023 to harvest, sort, clean, weigh, track, and deliver. They also helped with administrative tasks – there is a way for everyone to help!
Thanks volunteers for the 2,843 hours and 7,770 miles you donated!
“Volunteering somewhat regularly with CHCV gives me a chance to experience the seasons of food a lot more intentionally than I would otherwise. I always learn a lot every time I volunteer.”
— Elise Thorsen, CHCV Volunteer for the last 8 years
More pictures of all the volunteers’ hard work are posted along with a listing of our most dedicated 2023 volunteers here.
Thanks to so many generous individuals, foundations, businesses, and other partners who supported our gleaning efforts with your financial and in-kind support in 2023. We especially want to thank all those that made a contribution as part of our Recipe for Resilience campaign. We hope you will consider becoming a financial supporter as we focus on building a more resilient community - Glean More - Reuse More - Connect More. Become a one-time or sustaining donor today.
Thanks to Mark Cannella at Valentine Farm for letting us make use of his root crop washer again this year!
A special thanks to the many businesses that sponsored our 2023 field gleans and market gleaning.
Ellie Tobin Stubbs, CFP®, AWMASM, BFATM, Financial Advisor, Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
Let us know if your business is interested in becoming a sponsor in 2024.
“I continue to be impressed by CHCV's accomplishments and your growth as an organization making a real impact on food insecurity – and in your ability to motivate volunteers to do hard work to help out!”
— Timothy Swartz, CHCV Donor
Cultivating Resilience in 2024
Over the last 10 years, we have done a lot to build CHCV as an organization. It started with the logo in the first months of 2014 and has just kept happening on from there.
Last year saw our long-time plans for growth come to fruition – a new cargo van, a new facility, and working to increase staff benefits and work/life balance. Huge thanks to all of you who donated and volunteered to make these developments possible.
Our new facility at Rogers Farmstead which tripled our cooler storage capacity and provided us with an indoor processing space.
This upcoming gleaning season will be the first full season with all this infrastructure fully in place from the start. With expanded capacity for storage, delivery, and coordination, we hope to be able to save even more food from the compost pile, serve more sites, and continue to increase the consistency of our deliveries throughout the year.
There’s clearly more work that can be done! ReFED estimates that as of 2022, over 6,000 tons of food grown on Vermont farms was still not getting to people to be eaten. Meanwhile, our recipient sites continue to report increasing numbers of clients who need help accessing nutritious food.
As we continue to grow our capacity with your help, we are committed to chipping away at that number and working towards an ever more resilient and interconnected local food system.
We are so thankful for ALL OF YOU, our amazing community, that works with us to address hunger, reduce waste, and build a stronger more resilient community together!
We could not have done any of this without your help, support, and dedication to our mission – bringing our community together to make sure everyone has access to nutritious food, even in challenging times.
Committed to community resilience, we will be counting on your continued support in 2024 and beyond as we embark on our next decade, ready for any new challenges that may arise!
Again, thanks for all your fabulous support in 2023. Peace and hope to all in 2024!
