By Sydney Holder Riverbend News
The Society of St. Andrew (SoSA), with volunteers from Camp SOS, spent their Thursday morning harvesting blueberries from Rooney's Front Porch Farm in Live Oak. On Thursday, July 22, from 10 a.m. to noon, the volunteers gleaned the crop and donated almost 200 pints of fresh blueberries to local food ministries.
SoSA is a national, non-profit hunger relief organization based in Virginia, with nine regional offices across the state. Kelly Stainner, the program coordinator for Florida, though from central Florida, has extended her reach into the north Florida area, specifically Live Oak. Rather than handle finances, Stainner focuses on planning gleanings.
“Last year, we moved 10.5 million pounds of food and that was all due to the mercy and graciousness of our farmers,” Stainner said.
Stainner explained that seven million people struggle with hunger in the US annually, but that 134 billion pounds of food go to waste. SoSA's mission is to get the food into the hands of the hungry; bridging the gap between the two.
“Now we want our farmers to make money; without them making money there would be no gleaning," Stainner said. "We want them to sell everything they can sell, but when something is too big, too small, has a blemish or they just don't need it- that's when we come in and pick what we can and then everything we do gets donated to the hungry. We work with every size food bank, from the big food banks in Florida- the Second Harvest, Feeding America and Farm Shares- to the little church down the street with a food pantry every week.”
SoSA is unique because they collect fresh produce, such as blueberries and peaches, rather than donating processed, dry or canned goods.
“The Live Oak area is a new area for me,” Stainner said. “I am out of central Florida. I have an area coordinator in south Florida and mid Florida and I am going to hire someone for northeast Florida and the Live Oak area, so that they can do more. Because if I have people in all the areas, we can get more gleanings out. But, we can't do it without the volunteers, so I've been out here a couple of times, and the first time we had people driving from Jacksonville coming in. The second time there was just two of us because I just don't know the area well enough. So, I've started connecting with the churches and youth groups. It's great that this group is out here today. I'm thrilled so we can hopefully get more food into their hands.”
Camp SOS is a youth camp for students grades 6 through 12 in Suwannee County and a group of their students volunteered at the gleaning project at Rooney's Farm. The camp is a partnership between Friendship Baptist Church, O'Brien Baptist Church, Suwannee Station Baptist Church, Journey Church and Antioch Baptist Church.
“We spent the week studying the book of James and learning that there are two types of people: those who hear the truth but stay the same and those who hear the truth and do something about it,” Bethany McDonald said. “We want to be doers of God's Word and not just hearers.”
Camp SOS volunteers went out into the community in different projects for three hours. Students were assigned to serve Suwannee County Schools, Suwannee Parks and Rec., as well as glean blueberries to donate to a food bank, build a playground and serve at a food ministry at O'Brien Baptist Church, help at a funeral and paint at Friendship Baptist and do yard work at senior citizens' homes.
“We focus too much on our own church buildings and forget that we are the church, the people are the church,” McDonald said. “What I love about this camp is that multiple churches got together and went out of the church walls to be the church.”
The volunteers enjoyed a wonderful and successful gleaning event out in the sun, and, hopefully, there will be more to come for the Live Oak area.
For more information about the Society of St. Andrew, visit endhunger.org, or Society of St. Andrew – Florida, on Facebook. To contact Kelly Stainner, Florida Program Coordinator, email fl-glean@endhunger.org.
The 2021 U-Pick Berry Season is complete at Rooney's Front Porch Farm and they are temporarily closed for the season. Rooney's Farm is located, at 8611 47th Dr., in Live Oak.