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We’re pretty proud over here at VT headquarters: our September 2014 article “The Gleaners,” written by Emily Horton, was just nominated for “Article with the Biggest Societal Impact” in the Nook Readers’ Choice Newsstand Awards. Not sure what gleaning is? Here’s the story’s introduction (in easy-to-read print):
How do we square the fact that the U.S. wastes 30 to 40 percent of the food it produces with the reality that within the past five years, 6.4 million households haven’t known where their next meal was coming from? For a remedy, some community-minded folks are turning to an age-old practice. Alluded to in the Bible’s Book of Ruth, gleaning has traditionally meant harvesting remnant crops from fields. Today’s gleaners rescue food not just from the fields, but also from restaurants, farmers’ markets, orchards, backyards, grocery stores, college cafeterias, wholesale centers—basically, anywhere along the food distribution chain. The potential impact is huge: if even 30 percent of the food wasted in the U.S. were gathered before it’s trashed, the amount could provide meals for every hungry person in the country.
Read the entire story to learn more about this food-waste-fighting movement—then show your support by voting for us!