Gleanings From The Harvest, Galveston County's Link Between Surplus Food and Hungry People

How would you feel if you only had enough food to eat once a day? Or if you didn't know where your next meal was coming from?

How well would you do on your job if you hadn't eaten for two days?

How well could your children learn if they went to school day after day on an empty stomach?

That's the plight of many people, in Galveston County, hunger is a major problem here. Parents are desperate to get enough food for their children. Older people, many homebound, don't have enough money to buy nourishing food. The working poor are sometimes too proud to ask for public assistance or are making just a bit too much, but not enough, to make ends meet. And what about the single mom who can't qualify for benefits for another week? When you're hungry now, a promise of help later on doesn't fill your stomach.

Where can these people turn?
They could go to church pantries, social service agencies and faith based charities. They get what they can when they can. But there is never enough food at these distribution centers to meet the needs of all who are desperately in need.

Solving the problem of hunger in Galveston County is not just a matter of getting more food to the needy. It's getting more food to the organizations that serve the needy.

Small church pantries do a remarkable job of supplying food to their parishioners in need. But they can't receive and hold a truckload of milk when it becomes available. Organizations that feed people hot meals can't store fresh and frozen surplus food, just because it becomes available. And many agencies don't even have the funds to buy discounted food from the Houston Food Bank and similar sources.

The solution is Gleanings From The Harvest, an Interfaith, community based organization, established solely to receive surplus food from restaurants, grocery stores, institutions that prepare meals, corporations that manufacture food products, food brokers and shippers.

Gleanings stores and re-distributes this food to its members – a network of organizations that have identified and can rapidly deliver this food to the hungry of Galveston County. In this way, a variety of nutritious food items can be made consistently available all year 'round to those who feed the needy.

MISSION STATEMENT...

     We are united by God to seek the gleanings from the harvest...
     We seek individuals and organizations prepared to give from their harvest...
     We use these gleanings to supplement the needs of the "alien, fatherless and widow,"* that are among us...

Gleanings From The Harvest for Galveston
* Deuteronomy 24:19