As found in the Message version of the Bible:
9-10 "When you harvest your land, don't harvest right up to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings from the harvest. Don't strip your vineyard bare or go back and pick up the fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am God, your God.
Neither had I until about five years ago. That was when our youth director decided to sign up our group,
Teens N Touch, for a gleaning slot.
Gleaning is defined as the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. In Florida this applies to many types of fruits and vegetables.
 |
| Emily and Richard with their haul. |
Our group gleans citrus from local area trees. These trees are normally neighborhood or backyard trees. Occasionally we get the opportunity to glean whole groves, but that can be a daunting task for a youth group.
 |
| The group at House #1 |
This year we were assigned three different locations. Our first stop had only one grapefruit tree. For a group of seventeen mainly inexperienced fruit pickers, that one tree was thoroughly harvested. We ended up with twenty-one bags from it.
 |
| At House #2 |
The second stop was at my best friend Julie’s in-law’s house. They had about eight trees of several different varieties, including blood orange and grapefruit. From here we picked about seventy-five bags.
 |
| House #3 |
The third stop had about twelve trees, all of which were pretty scraggily. There were even two trees, an orange and lemon, that had begun cross pollinating and creating what we called “omens”. Not sure how those will taste. Other fruits included Honeybells and grapefruit. We picked fifty-one bags here.
 |
| Delivering the goods! |
We took the fruit to St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, where the Society of St. Andrew had set up a drop off location. All in all we gleaned about
1,300 lbs. of citrus.
Great day of service in His name!
No comments:
Post a Comment