Park Lake Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida, Gleans Fields to Feed Local Families

The apples have been picked, and the sweet potatoes were not worth the cost of digging. But for a group of Presbyterians walking slowly across the rows with buckets in hand, the harvest is just beginning.

The source points to an instruction in the Old Testament book of Leviticus that sounds practical: leave the edges of the field, leave what falls behind, and leave enough so that those in need and those far from home can gather food for themselves (Leviticus 19:9-10). Some Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations are now putting that instruction into practice. “We are acting out what the Scripture tells us,” said Helen DeBevoise, senior pastor of Park Lake Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida. “We are getting our hands into the dirt.”

Through the Society of St. Andrew (SoSA), a faith-based hunger-relief nonprofit, Park Lake members enter local fields after the commercial harvest, or when crops cannot economically be harvested. They gather fruits and vegetables to donate to local families in need of food. “It’s a family event with the folks actually out in the fields trudging between the rows,” DeBevoise said. The source notes an estimated 30% to 40% of food grown in the United States ends up as waste, mostly in landfills.

DeBevoise and her co-pastor and husband, Dan, have worked with SoSA since their first call, in Lynchburg, Virginia, where they gleaned apples. SoSA is based in Virginia and was founded in 1979 by United Methodist ministers who had seen food waste firsthand. According to Jennifer Davis Sensening, director of church relations for SoSA, the organization now partners with churches from more than 30 denominations and gleans more than 25 to 30 million pounds of food every year across the United States. Its work centers on reducing food waste, rescuing fresh produce and feeding hungry people through community action.

Lynette Johnson, a certified PC(USA) church educator, retired as SoSA’s executive director in September. She first learned of the organization while working in a PC(USA) church and said she thought it “was the neatest thing I’d ever heard of.” Johnson, who worked with SoSA for 16 years, said she often quotes the end of the account of Jesus feeding the 5,000, when Jesus told the disciples to gather the leftovers so nothing would be wasted. “We too have a job to make sure nothing is wasted and that everyone is fed,” Johnson said (John 6:12).

Sensening said the food system in the country is broken. “Food waste is a dramatic problem, and rotting and decaying food just creates more greenhouse gases,” she said. She added that “farmers may not have the labor or time to harvest all their crops.” SoSA, she said, builds relationships with farmers and works to reduce waste by moving fresh food from farms to hungry people.

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