Contreras donated new supplies such as the following: 5 totes, 8 shears, 8 pair of gloves, and 2 pack of Glad bags. Mr. Contreras’ donations will allow the gleaning crew members to continue salvaging  fruits for families and children in need of fresh nutritious fruits. The gleaning crew members are very grateful for Mr. Contreras donations.

Thank you for making a difference!

Best regards,
Alicia Castro
Volunteer Coordinator
Email: Vcoordinator@InlandValleyHopePartners.org

Hey All!

This past weekend was very fruitful for the Gleaning Hope program. We gleaned 353lbs of lemons and tangerines! Thats about a truck full of boxes of fruit! Anyways, we would like to share pictures from the glean and give a shout out to our gleaners and past/future donors–we wouldn’t be able to provide such a wonderful service to people in need

Enjoy the pictures and feel free to contact us for more info, donations, and/or volunteering!

Greetings Gleaning HOPE Followers!

Thank you for visiting our blog and supporting our Gleaning HOPE program! Last year we collected 9,500 pounds of fruits.  We thank our fruit donors who believe in our mission and continue to donate their excess fruit and vegetables grown in their backyard. The gleaning crew members made a difference by salvaging fresh nutritious fruits for people in need of food.

A group of Damien High School gleaning crew members and parents volunteered on January 14, 2012 to help salvage fruits. Our first gleaning was to collect lemons donated by Rhoda. The two trees were full of lemons and ready to be picked. Within 40 minutes, the gleaning crew members had collected 400 lbs of lemons. These young man (pictures are attached) enjoyed, picking, collecting and salvaging the fruits. Most of them asked when the next gleaning opportunity would take place because they would love to help again and recommend this wonderful program with friends. They’re going to help pass out flyers through churches, schools, and local neighborhood communities to support the program.

After gleaning the lemons, our next task was to collect grapefruits donated by Yolanda. It was a small tree and full of grapefruits! Within 20 minutes, the gleaning crew members helped salvage 300 lbs of grapefruits.

In less than two hours, we helped salvage 700 pounds of fruits! Imagine if we could salvage fruits every week? Many children and families would be able to eat fresh nutritious fruits from our four food pantries in Claremont, Pomona, Ontario, and San Dimas.

How you can help?

We are looking for fruit tree owners who have more fruits or vegetables than they need. Consider donating your fruits for people in need of food and you can receive income kind deduction. If you know someone who has too many fruits at their backyard, ask them if they would like to donate their fruits through the Gleaning HOPE program.  All you have to do is make a call or email the volunteer coordinator.

Alicia Castro

AmeriCorps – Volunteer Coordinator

Phone: (909) 622-3806 ext. 223

Fax: (909) 622-0484

Website: InlandValleyHopePartners.org

“Feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless since 1968″

Hello!

With Christmas coming soon, we thank our Gleaning Program Donors for donating their fruits and our gleaning crew members who took their time and consideration in gleaning fruits. Have a great holiday celebration with loved ones. We have great news to share with you!

We made it through the cover page at the  Foothill’s Magazine for December, pg. 61-62

 A special thank you for the Misner residence for donating over 800 lbs of pomegranates in October and 400 lbs of permissons in November. She has been a great donor and is willing to share our Gleaning Hope program with her neighbors who might be interested in helping  We thank Pastor Steve for donating 200 lbs oranges and Joan for donating over 100 lbs of oranges in December 3, 2011. It was very windy but our gleaning cew members and donors worked together to make the gleaning process easier. Here’s a few picture we would like to share with you.

Happy Holidays,

Alicia Castro

AmeriCorps- Volunter Corodinator (909) 622-3806 ext. 223

    Upon arrival at Sova in Ontario, I found the line of peope around the corner.  Distribution was scheduled to run from 7:30 to 9 AM and these people were prompt and waiting for the gate to open.  At 7:45, people were let in in groups of 10 at a time–and talking and laughing, with lots of acclamations of “Happy Thanksgiving!” the line moved past the turkey tables.  I even caught clients and volunteers discussing favorite turkey-cooking techniques–did you ever think of cooking your turkey upside down for half its oven time?

    It went so smoothly, in fact, that the line was totally gone 10 minutes later–every one of 87 turkeys distributed before 8 AM.  I took advantage of the lull to speak to a few of the volunteers, Bob and Linda Liebing, who hail originally from Long Island.  They came to Claremont seven years ago and celebrated their first thanksgiving away from family in a restaurant.  At some point during the meal they looked at each other and said “never again.”  Since then, they’ve volunteered their time every Thanksgiving (they’ll help serve the meal tomorrow at Beta as well) and they love being a part of it.  Having watched for years, they’re convinced of the value of this work, especially as the clints have changed.  Says Linda, “before now, most clients were repeat clients–now everybody’s new, suddenly in a situation where they need it.”

    Getting back to the office after that pleasant morning, I found that a communication mix-up suddenly provided us with nearly 40 more Albertsons meals.  I drove out to fit them all in my little sub-compact and made the trek back to Sova with extremely limited mirror usage.  I got there to find a new line accumulating at the gate and the intake room packed.  Volunteers were running around like pinballs and barely keeping up.  Thanks to generous donations by FedEx, Temple Beth Israel, Albertsons and so many more individuals and organizations, Thanksgiving food circulated all around.

    After all that, I could wax philosophical about Thanksgiving and what we can be thankful for and how generosity applies, but I think you get the picture.  Have a happy Thanksgiving–from all of us here at Hope Partners.

            And there’s the rub:  planning.  That’s the conclusion that our Executive Director and I both came to on our own during last week’s Food Stamp Challenge, a program sponsored by Fighting Poverty with Faith.  The plan was to eat for one week on a standard food stamp budget:  $31.50 for the week…which makes $4.50 for a day…which makes $1.50 for a meal…which makes a lot of things more difficult.  And the only way to make that sort of budget work out ok is, very simply, planning.

            The director spent a few hours at the beginning of her week doing just that.  She figured some inexpensive meals, estimated ingredient costs and shopped to fit the budget.  Thus, as her week started her diet was secure—albeit a bit depressing in terms of variety.  I, on the other hand, neglected to plan or shop in advance—skipped the first breakfast in order to afford a $3 lunch at Del Taco and hit the grocery store before dinner to wander the aisles…mainly for pasta, carrots, and macaroni & cheese.  She figured her bases were at least meagerly covered and I figured I could always skip a meal or two.

            And then we were off to the races:  subsisting on a diet only interesting in its novelty.  In this case I found it a blessing that I’m easily satisfied when it comes to food—four boxes of macaroni & cheese in one week might have turned other people off, especially if the days in between don’t change a lot:  spaghetti and store-brand sauce.  While plain, at the very least this diet satisfied—I ate until I was full every night.

            The director had a different experience.  She ate a much more balanced diet than me, which is not to say totally healthy by any means.  However, her improved diet led to an obvious side effect:  hunger.  She found that she was hungry more often during the day and had an especially hard time at lunch meetings where she couldn’t “afford” to eat along with everybody else.

            As we shared stories of how the week was going, we realized we were highlighting the curve for food stamp possibilities.  The choice is between eating well and eating enough—between health and satisfaction.  Toward the end of my week I suffered inexplicably from headaches, normally a very rare occurrence, until a vegetarian co-worker pointed out that I hadn’t eaten meat in a week.  If it hadn’t been for amazingly priced bananas from Trader Joe’s, I wouldn’t have had any fruit either.

            Which lead me to think…what if I had been on this budget for another week? A month? Longer?  I know that a little tenacity made skipping meals and subsisting on pasta no big deal, but at some point that isn’t biologically feasible anymore.  Longer term—if I didn’t get better at planning for the budget, I would have dealt with more serious issues.  The director came to the same conclusion—albeit with less dire connotations.  Without good planning—very intentional planning—a person’s diet suffers under a standard food stamp budget, and likely their health too.

            And that was our week.  What we learned wasn’t surprising in the least:  being hungry is no good, a tight budget is stressful, and food insecurity is hard.  But it’s a whole different ballgame from knowing it to experiencing it.  Even from experiencing it to living it without knowing that it will end after a week.  Again we’re faced with the reality and necessity of what we do here at Inland Valley Hope Partners—feeding the hungry.

Just had another glean from Bonnie who donated a bin of lemons! She also donated 2 giant zucchini squash and some limes! Here are a couple pics

Arikai and Eliza

Gleaning Hope Coordinators

So this past Tuesday, Sep. 27th, we had the first club meeting at the Claremont Colleges. For those that didn’t make it we talked about what the club does/its purpose, who we are, and future opportunities for club members/ volunteers (all info is under tabs @ top page). Here is a link to our meeting minutes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12AFGhxxBzaPTJ0gBgG8463KOCenWxS36lhDqH0H4h3I/edit?hl=en_US.

We decided that those interesting in gleaning only would only have to get email about dates of gleans and other updates. Those that are interested in helping with outreach and getting the word out could go to outreach team meetings. In reality, we are all very busy people So however much time and/or effort you are willing to put in is great!

The next meeting is next Tuesday, Oct. 4th 9pm in Walker’s Lounge on Pomona College campus. It is primarily focusing on outreach, but if you want to learn more of what we are doing, we will gladly answer any questions you may have.

Arikai and Eliza