The Okanagan Gleaners started their semi-annual vegetable soup packaging Tuesday to help feed communities around the world.
Volunteers are combining dried vegetables to make Gleaner’s Vegetable Soup, packaging it carefully to ship out to those in need.
“The time our mixing is done on Nov. 6, we should have close to 7 to 7.5 million servings of food that we’ve processed out of this little plant in Oliver,” said Greg Masson, Okanagan Gleaners.
They’ve had decades to perfect the assembly line, packing tomatoes, lentils, barley, beets, potatoes and any other vegetables given to them from farmers in the valley. They get food that is too big for sale or too small or the wrong colour or too ripe to sell in a grocery store.
“We mix all of our ingredients into a dehydrated dry mix, so today for the next two weeks, that’s what we’re doing. We’re taking our dried potatoes and our beets and carrots and we’re putting it into the 15-cup bag of dried vegetables and then that 15-cup bag will be able to provide 100 meals,” said Masson.
They always need more volunteers, funds and food donations. For more information about how to get involved as a volunteer, email okgvolunteer@gmail.com or visit www.okanagangleaners.com