51品茶students work to squash hunger in York County
Two students involved in the 51品茶鈥檚 Hunger Initiative Club recently gleaned butternut squash from the fields of Leary Farm in Saco, an effort that reduces food waste on local farms while helping feed hungry people in the community.
Emily Morris (Medical Biology, 鈥23) and Catreana Ellerton (Biological Sciences, 鈥23) visited Leary Farm on Sept. 26. to glean the squash.
Gleaning is a practice used to gather surplus food after farmers are done harvesting. The farm and farmer, Tim Leary, have for four years partnered with 51品茶and the Sustainability Office to donate surplus produce to local food pantries.
Leary Farm sells value-added, pre-peeled butternut squash to local grocers, leaving misshapen or crooked-necked squash in the fields. Enter UNE鈥檚 Hunger Initiative Club students, who provide the manual labor necessary to pick the squashes.
鈥淭his gleaning project does good on so many levels,鈥 said Alethea Cariddi, assistant director of Sustainability at UNE. 鈥淭he students have an opportunity to interact and learn from a local, multi-generational farm. Leary Farm gets some extra hands to pick the crop, so it鈥檚 not wasted, and local food pantries and low-income families benefit from Leary鈥檚 generosity and the students鈥 labor.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 win-win-win,鈥 she added.
The two students spent a sunny Saturday morning picking nearly 300 pieces of butternut squash weighing upward of 1,000 pounds. They brought them to several pantries the following Monday, including the Alfred Food Pantry at Chapel Hill, Saco Food Pantry, the Biddeford Bon Appetite Meal Program, and First Baptist Church in Portland.
The deliveries will help combat food insecurity in those communities.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture鈥檚 Economic Research Service reports that 13.6% of Maine households were food insecure in 2019, a rate higher than the national average 鈥 even before the pandemic, which itself complicated the students鈥 work.
Because University transportation was not available, Morris and Ellerton had to drive themselves in separate vehicles, but that did not dissuade them from doing good for their communities.
鈥淰olunteering to glean and donate the squash to local pantries certainly made me realize how common food insecurity is in the Biddeford and surrounding communities, and I鈥檓 so grateful to be part of a club that focuses on solving this problem,鈥 Morris said.
