"'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God.'" (Leviticus 23:22 NIV)

Sioux Falls Wesley opened their kitchen to Sioux Falls Thrive partners for this pilot gleaning project.(Photo courtesy of Rev. Cindy Coates)

In an agrarian society, as God sought to shape God's covenant people to live differently in the world, gleaning offered a tangible way to do that. If someone owned land, rather than "going over it with a fine-toothed comb" and harvesting every last morsel, they were commanded to leave a portion behind for the poor and the stranger living in their country.

Though this practice may seem strange to us today, especially for those who don't live within walking distance of agricultural land, the concept has timeless value. Sioux Falls Thrive is seeking to put it into practice in a new way.  The volunteer-based non-profit organization works to create systems and bring together people, programs, and organizations to address three key areas affecting children: out-of-school time, food security, and housing.

Collaborative partnerships are vital to accomplishing their mission—including piloting a "gleaning" project to address food accessibility.

"As we were working on this system and mapping it all out, we began seeing a huge gap in the area of food waste," explained Michelle Erpenbach, president of Sioux Falls Thrive. As the group of community partners discussed how to address this, the concept of gleaning emerged.

Several organizations in Sioux Falls, including Wesley United Methodist Church, participated in a shared effort to transform the concept of gleaning into something that would positively impact the community.

Rev. Cindy Coates, a deacon in the Dakotas Conference, is the pastor of Sioux Falls Wesley. She is also the director of Ground Works Connect. This non-profit works with schools and organizations to provide agricultural literacy, STEAM education, and leadership development for school-aged children. Because of this work, she has been at the table through the dreaming and planning of this project.

"Our work [at Ground Works] encompasses food accessibility," she explained. "When we talk about food, we also talk about waste. How do we empower individuals to take what might be considered waste and turn it into something different?"

That is just one of the questions that fueled this work to turn "extra" garden produce into something that could provide nourishment to community members.

Chefs from the Sioux Falls area process donated vegetables gleaned from area gardens.

This "experiment" came to fruition last Monday in the kitchen of Wesley UMC.

"What you saw on Monday has been in the works for months—trying to figure out who we know, where are we going to get the stuff, how are we going to get it there, and who's going to come," described Erpenbach.

The "who" would emerge from the relationships and partnerships that Thrive has developed in their work.

A call was put out to Master Gardeners who gleaned from some of the over 250 garden plots they oversee in the Sioux Falls community as well as from their personal or church gardens. The Mobile Food Market – another Sioux Falls Thrive project – reached out to their network of volunteers who often donate produce to consider offering up their gleanings. Pastor Cindy also tapped into her Wesley and Ground Works Connect teaching garden connections.

Volunteers from throughout the network stepped up to gather the donated items, which primarily included peppers, onions, and A LOT of tomatoes! This gleaning harvest produced 203 pounds of produce!

"It was really a test of, can we bring together not only the produce that would have gone to waste but the volunteers to help, to go out and get the get the stuff to bring it in," said Erpenbach.

"Can we find a kitchen? Can we then bring those chefs together so that we've got a ServSafe person and somebody that can actually look at these random boxes of vegetables and make that into something?"

The answer to those questions?  "Yes!" That is precisely what they did.

Chef Amanda Viau Hopkins, Director of Food Service at Avera McKennan Hospital, and a team of other culinary experts arrived at Wesley on Monday morning, assessed the harvest, and got to work chopping, mixing, spicing, and stirring.

"We had an idea of what we might get because we know what South Dakota produce this time of year is," pointed out Chef Amanda. "But we had no idea how much of those certain things we would receive."

The gleaning project resulted in salsa, marinara sauce, ratatouille base, and vegetable bean soup.(Photo courtesy of Rev. Cindy Coates)

SDSU Extension provided food preservation supplies and directions so the results would be safely prepared canned items. With the help of the right spices and a few extra ingredients, the 203 pounds of the donated product turned into 25 24-ounce bags of marinara sauce, 19 24-ounce bags of vegetable bean soup, 16 24-ounce bags of ratatouille base, and 66 one-pint jars of mild salsa.

These items will now be given away in different settings. One of those is the Mobile Food Market. The Mobile Food Market is a grocery store on wheels that brings healthy, affordable food to "food desert" neighborhoods across Sioux Falls. A food desert is an area without a grocery store within walking distance—typically a mile.

Food deserts are an example of the need to shift to talking about food accessibility as a critical component of food security. "Food insecurity focuses on the people who are lacking rather than the systems and structures that need to be addressed in order for food to be accessible," explained Pastor Cindy. The Mobile Food Market is set up at seven locations in Sioux Falls throughout the week.

The items created through the gleaning project will be given away, along with a recipe, with the purchase of other items. For example, customers might purchase chicken breasts and have it paired with a recipe for Salsa Chicken and a free jar of homemade salsa.

Even as they reflect on what they have learned through this "first run" of the gleaning project, organizers are already dreaming about how this vision for future iterations will include ways for gardeners, small farmers, or other "producers" to find out where they can donate their gleanings and report what they have to share and for volunteers to be a part of the process that turns what might have gone to waste into something wonderful.

Michelle Erpenbach, president of Sioux Falls Thrive, formerly served on the Dakotas Conference staff.(Photo courtesy of Sioux Falls Thrive)

When asked what advice she would have for individuals or churches who feel called to gather people together to try something new that could address the challenges facing people in their community, Erpenbach recalled a piece of wisdom she picked up from Bishop Mike Coyner while serving on staff with the Dakotas Conference of the United Methodist Church.

"He would say, as a congregation or as a conference, we can't always assume everybody's going to want to 'play' with us," she recalled.  "Sometimes we have to say, 'Well, maybe this just isn't your project.' Then, as a leader, you have to be OK with that and keep going with who you've got because then you know that you're working with a coalition of the willing."

For Pastor Cindy and the Wesley congregation, participating in this and other initiatives that equip and empower the people of their neighborhood and community is simply an expression of who they are as United Methodists.

"It's a reminder of who we are," she explained. "We are connectional. We are ecumenical. We are committed to social justice. That is who we are; this is what we do. We answer the call."