This is a curated collection of AGO resources from our members designed to share best gleaning practices with volunteers and staff who are running a gleaning program. It is recommended that you first complete the “Know Before You Start Learning Path” prior to this one.
The recorded presentations in the first section cover the principal types of gleaning including backyard, farm, and farmer’s market. You can choose from these areas to match the needs of your program. The following sections apply to all types of gleaning programs and are core to this learning path – growing your volunteer base, transportation and cold chain, harvest planning, and scaling the operation. In each section there are recommended presentations and optional presentations.
Audience: Program managers and operations staff. This path answers: “How do I run a more effective gleaning program?”
Types of Gleaning:
In this section, choose the area that aligns to your program’s design or explore other types of gleaning to expand your program’s reach.
Farm Gleaning: Farmer Engagement This presentation is from June 2025. Allison Levin of the Community Harvest of Central Vermont discusses the strategies her program employs to initiate and maintain relationships with farmers.
Orchard and Backyard Harvests: Backyard Harvesting This presentation is from 2021 with Food Forward based on how learnings from the Covid pandemic served to improve backyard program operations. The learnings are not specific to Covid operations. A highlight is the how the organization build a cadre of volunteer leaders.
Farmer’s Market Gleaning: Farmers Market Recovery This presentation is from 2025. Food Forward talks about how their successful gleaning program collects unsold produce from Farmer’s Markets.
Volunteers:
Growing A Volunteer Program This is a June 2025 presentation from Food Forward to share how they recruit and train hundreds of volunteer gleaners each year. (Recommended)
These are optional presentations focused on specific topics and methods to grow your volunteer base:
Diversifying Your Volunteer Base This presentation from July, 2025 focuses on how three gleaning organizations have made successful inroads in creating ethnic and class diversity in their volunteer base. (Optional)
Private Group Gleans This presentation from May 2025 by Rachel’s Table of Western Massachusetts, discusses their success in outreach to local businesses to and other groups to host private group gleans. (Optional)
Gleaning with Youth, Families & Kids This presentation from February 2026 covers the opportunities and challenges of bringing youth and families with children to gleans. (Optional)
Storage and Distribution
Year Round Storage & Distribution This presentation from Allison Levin of Community Harvest from Central Vermont from June 2026 provides specific tactics and strategies to best utilize storage capacity and streamline distribution. (Recommended)
Coolbot Technology This presentation from June 2022 describes the popular, cost effective, Coolbot refrigeration device that enables a standard AC unit to cool a walk-in refrigerator. (Recommended)
Harvest Planning
Changing the Gleaning Equation In this presentation from 2025 David Baecher of Merrymeeting Gleaners details a methodology to measure gleaning success that places consistency over total weights. (Recommended)
Post Harvest Production Planning for the use of B grade produce is a key success factor for gleaning programs. In this presentation from 2024 gleaners from Washington share best practices for post harvest production (Recommended)
Scaling Operation
Marginal Gains in Gleaning In this presentation from 2025, Deb Hicks of Boston Area Gleaners highlights the best practices that have allowed BAG to move more produce than ever. (Recommended)
Go Big or Go Home! In this optional presentation from 2024 Portland Fruit Tree Project and After The Harvest staff talk about large scale gleans and fundraising events they hosted. (Optional)