SEQUIM — It’s a parallel and a paradox.
Food prices are rising at an almost frightening pace, while fruit is ripening on local trees, lettuce lies in fields and zucchini multiplies in gardens.
And so an idea has flowered in the mind of Marissa Ortega-Welch, an AmeriCorps volunteer with the Olympic Community Action Programs.
The idea is gleaning, the gathering of fruits, vegetables and herbs left in fields after the harvest.
Ortega-Welch is looking for gleaners, as well as gardeners and farmers, in Joyce, Port Angeles and Sequim, to make OlyCAP’s “Good for the Gettin'” gleaning project go.
Volunteer pickers will have a chance to take home some of the harvest for their own households, Ortega-Welch said.
The rest will be donated to the Sequim Food Bank, Port Angeles Food Bank and the Salvation Army kitchen in Port Angeles.
