Rachel’s Table is expanding its ability to recover fresh produce from local farms with the addition of a new gleaning vehicle, a resource that Director of Program Strategy Cara Michelle Silverberg says will help the nonprofit reach more farms and better serve communities facing food insecurity across western Massachusetts.
For years, the Springfield-based nonprofit’s gleaning program relied on staff members and volunteers using their own vehicles to reach participating farms, a system that often limited where crews could go and how much produce they could transport.
“Sometimes that means a little Prius driving around on rickety farm roads and muddy roads,” Silverberg explained. “You can only do so much when you are relying on the goodwill of staff and volunteers with their personal vehicles.”
Gleaning occurs when volunteers collect surplus crops that the farmers did not harvest for market and that might otherwise go to waste. For example, farms often leave imperfect crops in the field, as produce with cosmetic issues can be difficult to sell. According to the nonprofit Feeding America, farms account for 21% of all food waste in the United States.
The truck that Rachel’s Table acquired was funded through a combination of grants and donations. The Max Cares Foundation contributed $10,000 after approaching Rachel’s Table to ask how it could support the organization’s work, while the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts awarded the nonprofit a $45,000 Community Resilience Grant. Together, those contributions covered the truck’s purchase, insurance and first-year operating costs. Go Graphics donated the custom vehicle wrap.
The gleaning vehicle, a silver 2023 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 pickup truck, provides a reliable form of transportation that is capable of navigating rough farm terrain while hauling larger quantities of produce. It also allows the organization to move harvested fruits and vegetables into cold storage more quickly, preserving produce quality and prolonging the amount of time in which the food can be distributed.
Silverberg said the vehicle arrives at a pivotal moment for the organization’s rapidly growing gleaning program, which has changed dramatically since its launch in 2007.
Last year, Rachel’s Table anticipated recovering about 50,000 pounds of produce through gleaning. Instead, volunteers harvested nearly 117,000 pounds after farmers across the region offered more surplus crops than ever before — a notable increase from the roughly 8,000 pounds in produce recovery that was typical in the program’s early years.
“We had volunteers who were asking, ‘How can I help?’ We had farmers who were calling us saying, ‘We have food. Please come get it,’” Silverberg said. “Once we got to that point, we felt like we didn’t want to say no to this. We don’t want to scale back from this. We want to keep saying yes to the momentum in the community among volunteers and among farmers.”
Gleaning also has deep historical roots. For Rachel’s Table, the work is grounded in Jewish traditions.
“There’s a cultural instruction that whoever is producing the food, that food needs to be available to everyone in the community,” Silverberg said. “We take that cultural instruction and we say, ‘OK, how do we adapt that for the world we’re living in today?’”
While Rachel’s Table is a Jewish organization, Silverberg emphasized that the program serves people of all backgrounds and partners with farms and community organizations across the region. Rachel’s Table serves Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties.
The gleaning program, originally centered around occasional educational events for youth and Scout groups, shifted after the COVID-19 pandemic as food insecurity increased. Rachel’s Table expanded to an open community gleaning model that focuses on recovering more produce while continuing to educate volunteers about the local food system.
That approach has transformed the program, increasing annual produce recovery while expanding relationships with local farms, recipient agencies and volunteers.
“There has been a real kind of snowball effect of people hearing about the program, sharing about the program and becoming not just ambassadors of the program, but shapers of it,” Silverberg shared. “Gleaners themselves really help to determine where food is going because they know their community so well.”
Local farms remain at the center of that effort.
“I mean, on one level, no farms, no food,” Silverberg said.
She added that produce that is harvested directly from local farms often provides greater nutritional value than food that has traveled through conventional distribution systems and can better meet the cultural preferences of diverse communities.
As Rachel’s Table develops a new strategic plan, Silverberg said success extends beyond distributing more food.
“Our founders like to say that success would [mean there’s not] a need for Rachel’s Table anymore,” she said. While Silverberg acknowledged that eliminating hunger will require broader community collaboration, she believes the nonprofit can play an important role.
“Being bridge builders and connective tissue,” she said, “is the best way that we can support that change.”
