The Okanagan Gleaners are growing, adding a brand new storage building to their facility in Oliver, B.C. Before the new building was installed the Gleaners relied on temporary infrastructure to help store hundreds of containers of their soup mix. Now it’s all in one building.
To continue feeding people in need around the world Masson and his team are asking for the public’s help to pay for the new storage building that cost them $350,000. Masson says they are $80,000 shy of their fundraising goal that he is sure they will make thanks to a generous donor has stepped up to match all donations until the first week of September.
Since 1994 the Okanagan Gleaners in Oliver have been collecting food that would otherwise have gone to waste in fields and orchards, then transforming it into dried vegetable products that can be sent to people in need around the world.
“So far in 2023 we have shipped out three and a half million servings of food,” said Masson.
Gleaners measure their productivity in servings instead of pounds or tons. One 15-cup bag of dehydrated vegetable products can be turned into a soup that will feed one hundred people.
“We’ve got just over two million in the barn waiting to go,” said Masson. “We have orders this year for an additional five million so by the end of December we will be pushing 10 million servings of food again.”
Once the new storage building is full, Masson says it will house more than five million servings of food ready to be shipped to those in need on one side, and on the other, it will hold more than 1,100 barrels of ready-to-be-mixed dehydrated vegetables. Which will help Masson and his team continue to meet the growing need for food in the world.
“We joke amongst ourselves that we would like to work ourselves out of a job, that isn’t going to happen,” said Masson. “If we can feed one more person, then that’s great.”
For more information about how you can help visit www.okanagangleaners.com
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