Patch Goes Gleaning with Marin Organic

Now that was a lot of green.

Patch editors joined the Marin Organic Glean Team on Monday afternoon to pick greens - all kinds of greens - under gorgeous sunny skies at  off Highway 1.

About a dozen volunteers gathered to pick kale, chard, collard greens and broccoli leaves as part of Marin Organic's School Lunch and Gleaning Program. (We also learned what the differences between all those are -- ok, only I didn't know the difference.) The organization uses gleaning, or collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they've been harvested, to provide high-quality produce for under-served communities in Marin.

During the school year, that means the gleaned products are donated to school lunch programs, allowing them to serve free and reduced price lunches to low-income students. Marin Organic serves programs throughout the county that have their own kitchens, providing the food directly to them. The Mill Valley School District (which doesn't have its own kitchens) also just inked a deal with San Ramon-based provider ChoiceLunch, which uses produce gleaned by Marin Organic.

"We’re connecting these farms with the people that can use this kind of food the most, “ said Chester Densmore, the organizations’s school lunch and gleaning program associate. “In the summertime, when school is out, we get this food to community centers and day care centers.”

The Glean Team is always looking for volunteers and meets every Monday in the summer on farms throughout Marin. For more info, click here.

And, you might even get to try a leaf or two -- all organic, of course.