About Us
“The Journey of Thousands Mile Starts with Single Step”
Chinese Proverb
In 1986 Gloria Martinson started The Gleaners in her kitchen when she saw how much perfectly good food was going to waste. She knew that many people in the Jackson area were going hungry, despite the best efforts of several non-profit
organizations that existed to help them. So, Gloria moved to start gleaning day-old doughnuts. Before long, she went to restaurants and grocery stores and simply asked for their excess food. The she took the many boxes of food to her home repackaged it, and gave it to the agencies that fed the hungry. From the early days of our organization, Nancy Willis has been involved with Gleaners.
Today Nancy manages the Gleaners. The organization remains an all-volunteer non-profit 501(c)(3) agency with a board of directors and works from its Briarwood location. This facility is equipped to ensure safe and sanitary repackaging conditions. The volunteers annually collect and distribute over 900,000 pounds of food to organizations that serve the hungry. The donated food comes from wholesale food distributors and retail establishments, such as grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, Churches and yes, donut shops and bakeries.
Forty volunteers work from 4 to 20 hours each week, collecting, sorting and packaging food, driving our fleet, coordinating our services with donor and recipient organizations, and countless other necessary tasks.
