Langston Moore, Mississippi Regional Director, and Leigh Ann Blalock, Mississippi Program Coordinator, of the Society of St. Andrew (SoSA), spoke to the Rotary Club of North Jackson at the club’s August 3 meeting. Per its website, the Society of St. Andrew brings people together to harvest and share healthy food, reduce food waste, and build caring communities by offering nourishment to hungry neighbors. The organization in effect gleans surplus foods and provides them to organizations that feed the hungry. Typically, the food is gleaned from farmers and food producers and distributed to food pantries.
SoSA was founded in 1979 by two Methodist Ministers and their families in Big Island, Virginia. It is organized into 8 regions, primarily in the Southeast United States. Its success speaks for itself. In 2021, through June,
SoSA has gleaned, gathered, and distributed 33,133,079 pounds of fresh produce in 2,552 events, with 7,488 volunteers.
Food donated by 473 farmers has been distributed to hungry people through 1,156 feeding agencies.
The food that SoSA gleans is perfectly good to eat, but it is either excess or does not meet some quality standards. Typically, the standards not met are the size of the produce. SoSA uses volunteers to glean the food and frequently to deliver it to a food pantry. In response to a question, the speakers said that although the Stewpot Community Services Food Pantry doesn’t provide fresh produce to its clients, Stewpot uses produce gleaned by SoSA to prepare its daily meals for the hungry.
SoSA uses volunteers in many roles including gleaners, drivers, writers, teachers, speakers, fundraisers, and others. It is primarily a volunteer-driven organization with a very small professional staff. The Mississippi office consists of two people and it operates statewide.
We thank Moore and Blalock for their presentation and for what they do to feed hungry Mississippians. They are shown in the following photo with ClubPresident Uriel Pineda (right).
Their presentation and the remainder of the meeting may be seen at the following link: https://vimeo.com/583530035.