Okanagan Gleaners president Rod Freeman displays some of this year’s sock donations at Oliver Alliance Church. Collection bins are currently placed at churches and businesses in Oliver and will remain there until December 1.
Erin Christie photo
Talk about a foot warming experience.
For more than a decade the Okanagan Gleaners Society has collected socks and toques to help orphans in Eastern Europe keep warm throughout the winter months.
On October 27 volunteers placed collection barrels in local churches and businesses in hopes that residents would fill them with new socks, mittens, toques and undergarments for kids of all ages.
The barrels will be collected on December 1, and taken to Park Drive Church where they will be sorted and sent to the relief agency Mission without Borders, for distribution to orphanages.
The Gleaners launched their first sock campaign in the fall of 1996 collecting roughly 200 pairs of socks. The Gleaners current president Rod Freeman said the campaign has grown exponentially over the years. Last year volunteers collected 10,000 pairs of socks. They also managed to collect 11,000 mixed items including undergarments, scarves, blankets and boots.
“The support in Oliver has been great and the items are always well-received,” said Freeman.
“But we can still use more. The demand is always more than we can supply.”
Freeman added that the sock campaign is the secondary initiative of the organization. Their primary initiative is to gather or ‘glean,’ local crops that are damaged or left in the fields and that would otherwise go to waste, and process it into dried soup-mix consisting of Brussels sprouts, onions, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, beans, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, turnips, potatoes, and dried peas.
The mix is packaged in barrels and shipped by relief organizations to starving people around the world.
Freeman said the Gleaners produce approximately 800-1000 barrels of soup mix per year. “We’re meeting a very basic need,” said Freeman.“And though that need is growing, we can see results. We know we’re helping.”
The Gleaners Society does not solicit funds but gratefully accepts donations, which are used to run their processing plant. To donate phone Ed Gowe, treasurer at 250-492-6545 to donate via visa or mastercard.
To donate by mail cheques can be made payable to the Okanagan Gleaners at 507 No. 3 Road, Oliver, BC V0H 1T1. For more information or to volunteer contact Rod Freeman at [email protected] or visit www.okanagangleaners.ca
Erin Christie
Oliver Chronicle
