We’re Always Here Building Connections!
We had another great year bringing all of you together to foster resilience, build community, and create lasting connections. Although 2024 had its share of challenges, we kept finding opportunities to glean van after van-load of wonderful food – highlights include 12,000 pounds of apples and 10,000 of carrots!
The first of the 10,000 pounds of carrots gleaned in 2024.
In all, over the course of 2024 we gleaned 88,517 pounds from local farms and food producers, which happens to be the most ever!
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. Through these VGC partners we received an additional 22,703 pounds of food from Willing Hands we were then able to donate.
We maintained partnerships with 30 local recipient organizations addressing hunger in our community. By donating all that recovered food we helped feed 12,668 individuals in Washington County. Many of those individuals received CHCV gleaned food on a weekly basis.
Overall, CHCV donated 103,509 pounds of food in 2024 to hungry Vermonters in need!
“I still can't believe that this is here.....with 4 kids, there is no way I could afford to buy them this fresh, healthy food. What would we do without this? Thank you, thank you!”
— Mother who visits the Worcester Community Kitchen & Food Shelf
Over the last 11 years, we have donated more than 2.6 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 have partnered with us and supported our work since 2014.
Our facility makes it possible for volunteers to work inside year-round.
Thanks to So Many!
We would like to thank the 50 generous farms, home growers, and other food producers that CHCV partnered with in 2024 for the thousands of pounds of nutritious food they all donated! A full list of 2024 contributing farms and food donors is listed here.
“You provide an amazing service, and impact the local food system and access to food arguably more than anyone else. You do it all in such a positive and organized way.”
— Khelcom Farm
Partnering with all these great farms is the first step in our work. Then it takes an amazing team of dedicated volunteers to harvest, sort, clean, weigh, track, and deliver this food. In 2024 alone, 363 members of the community jumped in to help lend a hand!
A huge thanks volunteers for the 2,947 hours and 7,124 miles you donated!
“Being part of a well-run organization, discovering new farms, making new friends and helping feed our community is most satisfying.”
— Deborah Messing, CHCV volunteer
More pictures of all the volunteers’ hard work that keep the wheels turning are posted along with a listing of our most dedicated 2024 volunteers here.
41 Montpelier High School students and staff join us on one of our 11 big days of gleaning carrots at Pete's Greens - in all we gleaned more than 10,000 pounds in 2024.
Thanks to so many generous individuals, foundations, businesses, towns, and other partners who supported us with your financial and in-kind gifts in 2024.
We especially want to thank all those that made a contribution as part of our year end campaign. We reached our year end goal!
Marge Christie gleaning collards at Blackbird Organics - one of the 52 times she volunteered in 2024 and 203 times over the last eight years!
A special thanks to the many businesses that sponsored our 2024 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 2025.
“Thank you for pulling us all together in our unique ways of helping. When people talk about the world, we cite Community Harvest as the way to push back the darkness and shine the light locally.”
— Lynn and Ron Wild, CHCV Donors & Volunteers
Cultivating Community in 2025
Over the last 11 years, countless hours and an unbelievable amount of community effort has gone into building CHCV as an organization. What started with just a simple logo and some winter squash in the trunk of a VW Jetta has grown into this amazing and impactful resource for so many in need throughout Washington County and beyond.
With financial support from generous donors in recent years our long-time plans for growth have come to fruition – a new cargo van, a new facility with lots more cooler space, and the resources needed to work toward increased staff benefits and work/life balance. Huge thanks to all of you who helped make these dreams reality!
The van hard at work — 2,000 pounds of apples being gleaned and loaded up, with space to spare for another glean later in the day. The van can hold up to 4,500 pounds of gleaned crops!
The 2024 gleaning season was our first full season with all of this new infrastructure fully in place, and it sure was nice. It’s already hard to imagine how we managed – to donate more than 100,000 pounds a year out of our old little green cooler. With this expanded capacity for storage, transportation, and coordination, we have been able to recover even more food from local farms and partners. And we can do it more efficiently, since we can now gather and transport much larger quantities in each glean.
This past growing season had its share of challenges, which resulted in many ups and downs in our gleaning opportunities. But with the new infrastructure we have increased our ability to take advantage of the ups, which helped balance out the downs.
Our volunteers have also been loving the new facility, which provides us all with a heated space, plenty of room to work, running water, lots of convenient storage, and more consistent year-round opportunities to help our neighbors facing food insecurity.
Meanwhile, our recipient sites are working hard to serve an increasing number of clients in need of nutritious food. Many sites have reported an increase of around 30% in recent months, making our collective efforts all the more critical.
As we continue working together to grow a stronger community, we are committed to helping EVERYONE EAT LOCAL, and to working toward 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 and loving community!
We could not have done any of this important work without your help, support, and dedication to our mission – bringing our community together to make sure everyone has access to nutritious food, especially in challenging times.
We are committed to keeping our community strong, and we will be counting on your continued support in 2025 and beyond as we meet whatever challenges are ahead.
We have so much gratitude for all your fabulous support in 2024. Peace and hope to all in 2025!
