About 40% of the food produced each year in the United States ends up in a landfill or is left to rot in the field. With almost half of the nation's food wasted, it's clear this is a massive problem, especially when 41 million people in the country are food insecure. The good news is that there are many different activities that can help tackle food waste. One of those activities is a little something called gleaning, and our network of movers like to take part in it.
Gleaning is the practice of collecting produce from farms that will not be sold in stores because of surface-level flaws and giving it to food insecure people. For the past two years, Wayne Moving & Storage, an Atlas Van Lines agent, has spent a day at their local orchard to glean apples. Now, coming up on their third year in a row, the Wayne team was very excited to get back out there, even in the cold weather!
"I’m glad that we were able to have the chance to do it, the weather hasn’t cooperated at all and we were picking in 35-degree Saturday morning weather, with wind gusts. It was frigid, but we were all dedicated to getting it done this year," said Stacey Louderback of Wayne Moving & Storage.
This year, Wayne Moving & Storage gleaned an impressive 1,240 pounds of apples! When combined with 2016 and 2017's gleaning totals, they have collected more than 4,000 pounds of apples over the years. That's a whole lot of fruit that otherwise would have gone uneaten. Instead, it's all been donated to the West Chester Food Cupboard to help out Pennsylvania families in need.
There are more than 42,000 people in Chester County who are food insecure, including 1 in 9 children. Thank you so much to Wayne Moving & Storage for dedicating themselves to fighting food waste and hunger in their local community. We hope to see you back at the orchard for gleaning in 2019!
Learn more about food waste in the United States, and what you can do to help.
