Gleaning For Leket - Reasons 2B Cheerful

My friend Netanya always celebrates her birthday with a good deed project (a mitzva project). This year she hired a bus and 50 friends went gleaning for Leket. You can read about Leket here but basically, it's a multi-faceted food rescue and redistribution organisation. This is what it says on their website....

Leket Israel is the largest food bank in Israel, and has been a leader and an expert in food rescue nationwide since 2003. The organization sources, collects and redistributes fresh, perishable, quality food, which would otherwise be considered waste, from farms, hotels, military bases and catering halls. This is done in an effort to aid the quarter of the country’s population that lives below the poverty line. Leket works with 195 non-profits throughout the country to provide nutritious food to over 175,000 Israelis weekly. Last year alone, Leket collected and delivered over 30 million pounds of fresh, healthy food for the needy.

Busy in the orange groves

I felt like the Biblical Ruth (although I'm probably more of a Naomi at my age) gleaning in the fields of Boaz my kinsman by marriage and eventual second husband. Ok, I'm getting carried way now - I didn't even put on make-up for goodness sake.

It actually took me back to my kibbutz days 35 years ago, picking pomegranates and avocados from dawn till high-noon. Ahhh those were the days.... 

Back to reality. In one morning Leket collected about 30 of these big crates (see the photo above), each holding 400 kg of fruit. We only worked for about an hour but it felt good that we, along with many other volunteers from all over Israel, helped to pick 12,000 kg of clementines to be given to people in need. At about 3 shekels/kg for clementines, that's over 7,000 GBPs worth of fruit (or $9.000). 

Who knew that tangerine trees had thorns? #learnedsomethingnew

As usual I'm linking up with R2BC on Mummy from the Heart.