Skagit Gleaners
Local People, Local Food, Powered by a Community Driven Model
Our Vision & Mission
Skagit Gleaners’ vision is to empower families with programs and resources that foster a community of sustainability and resilience.
Skagit Gleaners' mission is to address food waste and its associated impacts on the environment while building an equitable food system.
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Monday, Wednesday & Friday 9:30 am - 12:30 pm
Doors open at 9:00 am
Tuesday, Thursday 3:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Doors open at 3:00 pm
Saturday, Sunday 9:30 am - 11:30 am
Doors open at 9:00 am
What is a community driven food system?
Our current centralized food system fails to provide affordable access to nutrient-rich food for all. As a result, our national emergency food system has been demonstrated to be non-resilient to economic shocks and food waste permeates our food system. A community-driven food system incorporates “systems thinking” into food programs that are centered around integration and community-led solutions. For Skagit Gleaners, this means we incorporate the following components into our program structure:
Food equity and alternative approaches to food access and food waste are the driving points behind Skagit Gleaners’ programs. We strive to provide more sustainable solutions to food that promotes community resiliency, cross-sector collaboration, and food justice.
What is Gleaning?
Gleaning has been an essential part of feeding communities for over 2,000 years. After harvesting their crops, farmers would open their fields for families to collect what was left. Historically, this helped feed food-insecure groups within communities and kept unharvested food from going to waste.
Today, we work with a network of local farms to collect what they are not able to harvest, offering farmers a tax write-off for their donations. What is harvested by us comes back to our facility to be shared with all of our members.
How Does This Impact Your Community?
Skagit Gleaners’ community-driven food system creates resiliency, increases food access, supports small and local farming, promotes food justice, and provides our community with fresh and nutritious foods. Our gleaning programs provide an alternative to food waste and offer cost-saving opportunities to businesses and farms that donate. Our cooperative model embodies a culture of empowerment through community-centric giving and active participation in the organization. Everyone benefits from a community-driven food system.