By Jean Blish Siers *
“What do they eat on Tuesday?” Those words have been rolling around in my head since we harvested our final field of beautiful strawberries last summer.
Sarah had brought her young son Graham to glean with us that day for the first time. Graham is one of those amazing kids I love to be around: He’s a questioner. Why was there a chicken coop with no chickens? Why were some ...
Continue Reading →It seems so simple. About forty people scatter across a field that’s covered by rows of leafy plants. They talk with each other, and laugh sometimes, as they pick kale. This bucolic scene is a common one for volunteers with the Society of St. Andrew. It happens thousands of times a year, in fields and orchards from the Gulf states of Florida and Mississippi, to the upper plains of Michigan and the hills of ...
Continue Reading →Ethel Halsey, a schoolteacher and outdoor educator from Rhode Island, was active in hiking and nature groups throughout her adult life. She supported charities that preserved the environment and promoted wise use of Earth’s resources.
Ethel knew she wanted to leave a legacy that would carry on her commitments long beyond her lifetime. Never married and childless, the decisions about how to structure that legacy were entirely her own – and Ethel was a planner. She selected a ...
Continue Reading →By Lynette Johnson
Nearly forty years ago, a community of faith was formed in rural Bedford County, Virginia. Two families covenanted together, to live simply and prayerfully, holding all things in common, following the model of the early church in Acts 2.
In all the time since, as the Society of St. Andrew grew from two families on a small farm to a hunger relief ministry with national impact, members of those ...
Continue Reading →By Jean Blish Siers *
A new gleaner joined our ranks this year, a delightful senior citizen named Gloria who heard about us from a friend and came to a strawberry gleaning early in the season. She’s been out almost once a week since, driving to far-flung fields in places she’s never been before.
On Saturday we were in Rowan County, about an hour north of Charlotte, where both Gloria and I live. She got ...
Continue Reading →By Jean Blish Siers *
Late on a Friday afternoon, about the time I assumed I could shut my computer down and start my weekend, my phone started ringing. First came a call from a farmer who had seven rows of peach trees that we could glean. The peaches were small – mostly too small to sell – and some had a bit of frost damage on the skin. While the scarring was ...