Urban Gleaner's purpose and mission is to collect delicious fresh food before it can go to waste and redistribute it to food insecure children and families in a sustainable, equitable, and dignified way. Urban Gleaner’s role is to provide a critical link between organizations and businesses that have excess food and the food insecure people who need this food. Wasted food degrades the human experience and damages lives; we are committed to repairing that harm and preventing it from afflicting others and the environment.
For individual/personal donations: We accept canned food items no more than 1 year expired. Shelf stable dairy items must be no more than 1 year expired. We cannot accept anything already open (bags of flour, rice, etc). All items must be in clean, unopened condition.
If you are a business looking to donate food, or have unserved leftovers from an event, please see below for more guidelines. We are sometimes able to schedule pickups for over 100 LBS of food – to coordinate a pickup please email or call the warehouse.
ProducePedia
ProducePedia is a free resource that covers the types of fresh produce that can be delivered to food pantries. Each entry includes information on color, taste, and possible uses. People unfamiliar with the vegetable or fruit will learn how to use it, and those who are familiar with it still might learn a fun fact or two!
The Cooperative Extension sites have a wealth of information for any backyard gardener. Once you go to the site (each one if very different from the others) look for a link for “homes and gardens”, “landscape”, “consumer horticulture”, etc. to find information on improving your backyard garden. Neighboring state sites may offer information your own state’s site lacks.
