SAN DIEGO – It all started in the early 1990s with three men driving a pickup truck in North County.
They passed fields filled with fruit going to waste on the ground and wondered what they could do to make a difference.
Those three men were retired Lutheran minister Laurel Gray and farmers Dene Hatch and George Norton, who would soon become the founders of local nonprofit Senior Gleaners of San Diego County.
“The original founders had two goals in mind,” Senior Gleaners Board President Pradip Mistry said. “One: to rescue the food. And two: to give seniors a meaningful activity.”
Over 30 years after founding, Senior Gleaners activates nearly 200 senior volunteers across San Diego County to glean excess food from residents and grocery store partners and redistribute the produce to people in need.
In a recent study, the organization tracked that — over the course of one year — volunteers prevented 419,056 pounds of food waste and generated 1.1 million meal servings through its distribution partners.
“Those could be food pantries, they could be churches, they could be anybody who’s giving away food on a regular basis,” Senior Gleaners General Manager Lisa Lindgren said.
Senior Gleaner...