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Rotary helps

Kalamalka Rotarians, family and friends volunteered at the Gleaners processing facilit
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Rotarian Taylor Dedora prepares to place cut up vegetables on drying racks at the Gleaners facility.

Members of a Vernon service club rolled up their sleeves to tackle global hunger.

On a recent Saturday, 18 Kalamalka Rotarians, family and friends volunteered at the Gleaners processing facility in Lavington.

“The Rotarians at Work Day is something our club participates in each year,” said Mary Jackson, club president.

The North Okanagan Gleaners Society accepts donations of large or malformed vegetables which would otherwise go to waste and turns them into soup mixes. Volunteers chop the various vegetables which are then dehydrated, packaged in 100 serving sealed bags and shipped to other countries.

“We’d like to send a big thank you to the Kalamalka Rotarians who helped us at the plant,” said Harold Sellars, with the Gleaners.

“Every morning shift allows us to produce more than 1,100 servings of soup per volunteer, which means the Rotarians created almost 20,000 servings of soup during their morning shift.”

In addition to hands-on support, Kalamalka Rotary has donated funds to several Gleaners projects including the purchase of stainless steel food preparation tables and, most recently, a donation to fund a rainwater catchment system which will allow the society to use rainwater for the initial wash of donated vegetables as well as reduce their utility bills.

Anyone wishing to donate vegetables to the Gleaners can go to http://novgleaners.org/index.html.