OUR PARTNERS

Our partners are local farms and food distribution agencies who have joined us to take action against hunger in our community. Many of them not only want to help our cause, but recognize that participating with us provides a mutual benefit: we take the leftover crops off of their hands, and they help provide healthful fruits and vegetables to those in need.

Many people don’t realize that hundreds of pounds of nutritious, locally grown produce are left in the fields after harvest is complete. It’s true — according to the USDA, an estimated 25 – 30 percent of all food crops are left in the fields after harvest.

There are a variety of reasons that leftover produce does not get harvested. Sometimes produce is left behind because it has developed cosmetic blemishes or it has grown too large for its packaging. Other reasons include overproduction and dwindling market price.

When Fields to Families came along in 2006, we began to “rescue” these fruits and vegetables from being plowed under.

Our partners include:

Ambrose Farms
Boone Hall Farm
Breaktime of Charleston, Inc.
Clemson University’s Coastal Research and Education Center
Fields Farm
Freeman's Farm
Gruber Farm
H&J Fields Farms
Hickory Bluff Nursery
J. Brown
Joseph Fields Farm
Kennerty Farms
Kurious Hydroponic Tomatoes
Larry Creel
Owl's Nest Plantation
Rio Bertolini's Fresh Pasta
Rivers Vegetable Market
Rosebank Farms
Simmons Farm
Stroble Farms
T & T's Original Kettle
Tazza Beverages
Thornhill Farms
Triple S Farm
Various vendors at area farmers markets

Did You Know...
Ancient communities required farmers to refrain from reaping all the way to the edges of a field so as to leave some for the poor and for strangers? In the modern world, gleaning is practiced by humanitarian groups that distribute the gleaned food to the poor and hungry. This is why the term “glean” means “the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested.”