After the Harvest

Ath worked with harvesters to secure 1,540,350 pounds of fresh produce delivered to our local food bank via semi truckloads in 2022, sharing costs to enable us to bring in more truckloads. Produce ranged from white and sweet potatoes to pineapples and watermelons. Through its partnerships with farmers choice and soik sales, ath has access to more fresh produce than we can afford to distribute. We cover packaging, handling and sourcing fees for the donated produce.

the gleaning program has evolved into expanding our food resources. We still glean or Harvest crops from our farmer partners' fields but now include rescuing produce from various sources. These resources are from local and regional produce distribution warehouses and farms, farmers markets and university extension's test fields. This enabled ath staff and volunteers to rescue almost 1 million pounds of fresh produce in 2022, all of which was delivered to agencies and food pantries across the Kansas city region. Ath is focusing efforts to expand the gleaning program in part because it reduces the organization's carbon footprint by sourcing more fresh produce locally and regionally.