Grant Helps Fund Food Security
To meet growing demand for their packaged soup mixes, the Peace Country Gleaners Society (PCGS) has been building an addition to their processing facility to add storage capacity and another dehydrator.
“We deliver about seven million servings of dried vegetables to Okanagan Gleaners in Oliver, B.C., who package it with the four million servings they produce, and by the time that is done it is already all spoken for,” says Kathy Friesen, who co-manages the processing facility with her husband Henry.
The vegetables are all sourced locally and once harvest begins it takes an army of volunteers around half a year to process everything for packaging in Oliver and eventual distribution to food relief organizations around the world.
“We are completely run by volunteers, and everything else is covered by donations,” says Friesen. “The vegetables, the equipment, everything is either donated or paid for with donations.”
With the addition of the new dehydrator and storage space nearing completion, Friesen was pleasantly surprised to hear the Gleaners Society had been selected for a $5,000 investment from ADAMA Canada’s Stomping Grounds community investment initiative.
Stomping Grounds
The Peace Country Gleaners Society is one of 23 community projects from across Canada that received funding from ADAMA this year. The company invested a total of $127,000 into the 23 projects and has contributed over half a million dollars since 2018 to strengthen the fabric of rural communities.
Simon Wiebe from Richardson Pioneer in La Crete, Alta., joined Deanna Chabot, Northern Alberta Area Business Manager with ADAMA Canada, to personally deliver the cheque to the Peace Country Gleaners Society.
“Simon actually submitted the application for the grant on behalf of the Gleaners, and they didn’t know anything about it until we informed them they were selected, so it was a bit of a surprise for Kathy,” says Chabot.
“I was surprised and very thankful because we need lots of donations right now – it’s expensive doing what we’re doing, and we’ve got a lot of bills,” says Friesen.
It was transportation expenses that led to the formation of the PCGS back in 2012.
“Henry and I started by volunteering with the Okanagan Gleaners and would bring truckloads of potatoes down there, but then we thought it might be a good idea to dry them here instead of hauling all that water,” says Friesen. “So, we called some local people to a meeting and by the end of that first meeting had a board and started building our processing facility in 2013.”
Now, each package of dried vegetables the two groups produce makes about 100 cups of soup and Friesen says much of what is being produced is being shipped to Ukraine.
“After my visit I was thinking about how the reason the PCGS started was to make it more economical to transport vegetable by dehydrating them first,” says Chabot. “With the cost of transportation now and the fact most of what they produce is going to Ukraine, that new dehydrator is going to make a big difference.”