WASHINGON, D.C. ‐ On June 16, members of Edgemoor, National Marketing and Clark Financial Services Group came together to volunteer with DC Central Kitchen (DCCK), a local food bank serving the greater Washington metropolitan area. The mission of DCCK is to turn leftover food into healthy meals for thousands of at-risk individuals while offering nationally recognized culinary job training to once homeless and hungry adults. Volunteers travelled to Miller Farms in Clinton, Maryland to pick Collard Greens and Kale as part of DCCK's gleaning program. Through partnerships with nearby farms, the gleaning program recovers food leftover from the harvest which otherwise would go unused due to low market prices. Crop gleaning ensures the food does not go to waste and is instead distributed to those who have limited access to fresh produce. Volunteers arrived at the farm early in the morning, and after four hours of gleaning were able to harvest over 1,000 lbs of fresh produce for DCCK. Once collected, the vegetables were then delivered to DCCK's kitchen in northwest Washington DC, where DCCK's trained chefs incorporated them into the 4,500 nutritious meals distributed daily via shelters and social service agencies across the city.
