As Doug Whistance spent his first day at Ontario Christian Gleaners surrounded by buckets of donated vegetables, his mind was on hungry people he’s never met.

“It’s very simple: we’re feeding people who need to be fed,” the Cambridge man said Friday at the year-old operation at 1550 Morrison Rd.

“This is one way to help them survive.”

Men and women cutting seeds and stems from green and red peppers piled around them echoed his matter-of-fact outlook on volunteering at the year-old, non-profit operation at the city limits.

“It’s something worthwhile to do,” said Henk Timmerman of Cambridge.

“It’s knowing that you’re helping people in need.”

Margaret Gilligan travelled from Toronto to pitch in. She heard about the gleaners while at a conference in Vancouver. Now the Sheffield native has seen them in action, she’s eager to spread the word in her church—perhaps as working day trips for youth groups.

The idea comes from the Biblical direction that farmers allow the poor to search through fields after harvest to find food. Today, what’s gleaned is food that doesn’t look perfect enough to sit on a supermarket shelf.

“I’ve seen a load of tomatoes that’s been rejected at the retail level because they’re too red,” said Harry Van Dyke, who supervised construction of the operation last year.

Or think about a red pepper that has a bit of green. Perfectly edible, but imperfect in today’s consumer society.

The Cambridge operation is modelled after a Christian gleaning operation running in southern British Columbia. And now, the local operation is hosting some visitors looking to copy it in Prince Edward Island—or in central British Columbia.

Food is donated from local farms, the Ontario food terminal in Toronto or the vegetable producing Holland Marsh north of Toronto.

Cauliflower, lentils, butternut squash, potatoes and tomatoes are always welcome, because they’re easy to handle and chop. Stone is looking to make arrangements with a processing plan to take vegetable trimmings. Like broccoli stems left over after the florets are removed for fancy dishes.

Manager Shelley Stone is keen for donations of pre-dried beans, pasta and onions — especially onions. Tears run from the eyes of volunteers when chopping hundreds of kilograms of fresh onions.

When they get fruit, like apples or apricots, that’s dried too, but for the soup mix.

“We send it along as a sweet treat,” said Stone, the gleaner’s only paid employee.

Each (1.4 kilogram) three-pound bag packaged there makes 100 servings of soup when cooked in 25 litres of water. Or it can be used as topping for rice and peas.

In its first year, about three million servings will ship from the blue barn southeast of the city. That’s about 11,400 kilograms (25,000 pounds) of wholesome food that was destined for compost or animal feed.

The gleaners cost $500,000 to set up, all donated. A used, $100,000 dryer was supplied by Wol-Dor Industries of New Hamburg, at the cost of refurbishing: $32,000.

It operates on land leased for $1 a year from Bosdale Farms.

New fundraising is underway to raise another $100,000 for a building addition to more efficiently house the dryer. Almost half the money is already in the bank.

The gleaners is also always on the hunt for extra help. Like a trucker to haul five tonnes of donated beans sitting in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, that needs to head east to Cambridge.

And they need a dock plate, for the loading area where trucks back up to unload. A used one from a trucking company would be perfect, Stone said.

Open house tours of the operation are set for Wednesday (Oct 7), Oct. 19 and Oct. 29. Drop by at 10:30 a.m.

Depending on the morning, 20 to 40 volunteers grab knives and buckets in the processing area. As they chatter and joke, they remove seeds and stems from vegetables that they then feed through a mechanical chopper. From there, the vegetables are rolled in bins to the industrial food dryer. Within an hour, they’re ready for storage in big plastic tubs.

Because vegetables vary by the season and what’s donated, the soup mix production line only runs when there’s enough ingredients available for a bagging line to be set up.

Stone has about 150 volunteers on her roster. Many are retired, and most are members of area Christian churches. Sometimes, high school students pitch in, along with people who haven’t been to church in years—or ever.

“It’s very much a social event,” Stone said. “It’s a quilting bee mentality.”

kswayze@therecord.com