Boston Area Gleaners, Inc.

2010 Income and Expenses

2010 Actual

Fiscal Overview In cash values, we finished 2010 in the black, but the long-term goal is to cover the cost of our in-kind expenses as well (currently leaving us in the red), as the vast majority represents the directors unpaid labor. While this is a stable arrangement in the short term, it is an unsustainable arrangement in the long term, based the ongoing need for gleaning shown by local producers and area recipients. Are goal therefor is to cover our in-kind expenditures, in order to maintain the long term stability for the organization.

Boston Area Gleaners, Inc.

Harvesting against Hunger
2010 Annual Report
Board of Directors
Duck Caldwell and Oakes Plimpton

Revenue Individual Donations Grant and Foundation Awards Fundraising Events Collections for Deliveries Sale of BAG Merchandise Loans or other Cash Injection Cash on hand from 2009 Net Income Operating Expenses Wages Payroll Expenses Supplies (office and operating) Purchases (fundraising, member gifts) Office Equipment Rent Expense Communications (phone, internet, domain, server) Accounting and Legal Transportation Advertising Expenses IT Services (office systems and web) Conferences and Training Postage and Printing Licenses and Fees Insurance Bank Fees Miscellaneous Total Operating Expenses (Cash) Excess of Income over Expenses (Cash)

14,941 4,090 1,660 2,794 185 8,373 2,525 34,568

10,647 2,777 410 870 175 2,250 1,470 425 1,868 159 2,560 994 860 205 1,279 260 132 27,341 7,227

BAG Gleaning and Salvage Recipients 2010 Arlington Public Housing ,Belmont Food Pantry, Bristol Lodge, Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee (CEOC), CASPAR, Christian Life Center ,Community Cupboard Food Pantry, Eliot Halfway House, Food For Free, Gateway Motel, Germaine Lawrence School, Greater Boston Food Bank, Helping Hand Food Pantry, Lexington Food Pantry, Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry, Lowell Transition House, Middlesex Human Services, Marys House, Pine Street Inn, Project Soup, Red Cross, Rosies Place, Womens Sandras Lodge, Salvation Army, St Francis House,Veterans Shelter, Young Adult Vocational Program

Scott A. Clarke Myriel Eykamp Josh Hetrick Secretary/Clerk Helene Newberg, Esq. Treasurer Candice Oyer Oakes Plimpton President Sheri Siegel, DVM Patience Terry Staff

We are very pleased with the progress of the organization in 2010, especially as 2009 was a difficult year, when leadership was not unified and the board of directors had dissolved. It was a daunting task for everyone involved the first few months, but through the efforts listed below, we finished out the year with a healthier organization than ever before. Going into 2011, we all feel confident that our primary mission to glean and deliver fresh produce to those in need will be able to continue. Although few funds were raised in 2009, Oakes personally received a windfall amount of money at the end of that year (a $10K loan repayment from a local farm, which he never expected to see), which he decided to use as seed money in a newly dedicated effort to reorganize BAG in 2010. From there, a part-time administrator, Laurie Duck Caldwell, was hired part time, on January 1, 2010, as the first-ever employee. On January 23, 2010, the brand new board of directors was elected. Oakes continued to work pro bono for the organization, putting in an average of 20 hours per week as director and gleaning coordinator. The board met regularly each month during 2010. Listed below are a few highlights (in approximate chronological order) of the work they and the staff accomplished.

In-Kind Operations Pro Bono Director ($20.25 fed rate X 20hrs/wk X 52) In-Kind services (computer programming and repair) In-Kind equpiment (1 cargo van and one computer) Total In-Kind Expenses TOTAL COSTS FOR OPERATIONS (Cash + In-Kin TOTAL Excess of Income over Expenses 21,060 1,000 2,800 $24,860 $52,201 -17,633

Laurie Duck Caldwell

Board Education In an effort to create a stable and productive board, Rebecca Riccio of WriteChange was contracted for $200 to present a workshop to the board on lifecycle challenges of small, project-driven non-profits. It was clear that in 2009, BAG had hit the wall of resource and energy, and therefore had to decide to go boldly forward into organizational development, fold, or merge with a larger organization. The board did vote to investigate merging with a larger hunger relief organization, but it was clear that organizational development was still needed in order to make BAG marketable to larger organizations. A full summary of this workshop by Rebecca is available upon request. Diversified Funding and Collaborations We began a conversation with Food For Free in Cambridge to pay BAG a fee for delivering gleaned produce. Food For Free distributes fresh food daily to 75 food pantries, shelters, and kitchens in and around Boston, and raises funds in part to buy fresh produce from Chelsea Market and/or pay for the recovery and delivery of fresh produce for the purpose of donation. We finally settled on $6 per full 1 1/8 bushel box (i.e. a banana box). This new collaboration enabled us to spend more time in the fields and less on the road en route to deliveries. Our fuel costs were suddenly cut by more than half, and so also our carbon footprint per pound of gleaned and delivered food was significantly lessened.
Oakes and Volunteers at Waltham Fields Community Farm 240 Beaver Street Waltham, MA 02452 7818943212 E-mail: volunteer@bostonareagleaners.org Web: www.bostonareagleaners.org

The Food For Free arrangement was so successful that we decided to approach food pantries near our home base of Waltham to propose a similar delivery fee arrangement. These pantries are outside Food For Frees truck routes and actually buy fresh produce from the Greater Boston Food Bank, sending volunteers to pick it up. They were therefore thrilled with our delivery fee proposal at $5 per bushel box, which gives them access to fresh local produce in season. The food pantries we now serve directly include: Medford, Belmont, Lexington, and the Waltham Salvation Army. Past recipients not included in our direct deliveries are now covered by the Food For Free deliveries. These delivery fee arrangements gave us a scale on which to gauge whether particular gleaning trips were worth their costs to the organization; that is, that the mileage used warranted the trip relative to the amount of food collected, and in addition, that the produce would have a recipient organization ready to receive it at the end of the day. Any trip not deemed worthy according to the scale was scrapped, combined with another trip in the surrounding area, or the mileage donated in kind by Oakes and called a pleasure trip although of course the extras were still delivered to pantries. The total delivery fees collected in 2010 were $2,794. Grants, Foundations, Gifts, and Donations BAG won three grants (more than the combined total of the previous 3 years), from Project Bread ($1,275), New England Grassroots Environment Fund ($1,500), the Feinstein Foundation ($260), and a private local family foundation ($1,000), and matching gifts ($55) for a total of $4,090. BAG was gifted a cargo van in December by a retired plumber, Jerry Callaghan, who found BAG thanks to new member Jim Vath. The van provides us with 40% more carrying capacity than before, and releases Oakes and Duck from the rough use of their vehicles on both farm roads and inner city streets. Donations from individuals reached an all-time high of $14, 941. Communications and Record-Keeping With the help of Patricia Carney of Walden Webworks, we had our website updated, and began using Constant Contact to issue brief and timely gleaning notices. Potential new volunteers were also able to sign up for our mailings via our website. We also began sending quarterly newsletters, created a Facebook page, and a Twitter identity. Databases for membership, volunteerism, and gleaning were recreated and improved. Membership and Volunteers There was a 27% increase in membership in 2010, from 130 to 181. We also increased volunteer sign up and participation. BAG had volunteer attendance 290 times on 85 gleaning trips from May through December. The approximate time these volunteers spent gleaning is 870 hours. Gleaning and Food Rescue 2010 was a very good year for farm gleaning. We harvested some 37,545 pounds of fresh, local produce for food pantries and shelters, 40% over the 2009 total, previously our highest at 22,500 lbs. Our last gleaning was Dec 31 and the last delivery Jan 3, both the latest ever. We gleaned from 15 area farms over the course of the 8-month season, returning to most farms many times for a total of 85 gleaning trips. Food rescue efforts at the Arlington Trader Joes continued throughout the year, collecting over 74,000 lbs. Despite the impressive totals, the board has no plans to expand this area of the organization, as farm gleaning remains our primary mission. (In fact, a goal for 2011 might be finding another organization to take over this important food rescue effort.)

Non-profit Collaborations In addition to our new collaboration with the non-profit Food For Free, there are two other strong relationships that marked 2010. Gore Place in Waltham http://www.goreplace.org/index.htm which, for the past three seasons, has grown extra produce specifically for BAG to harvest, again came through with over 2,000 lbs of Waltham butternut squash (incidentally, a variety developed at the UMass Field Station, our home base) as well as many pounds of greens and eggplants. Gore Place also donated a booth for us at their Sheepshearing Festival in April, and in general, are very serious about continuing to find ways to link their historic grounds to the local community. Waltham Fields Community Farm http://www.communityfarms.org/ reached out to us in December when the hard freeze was predicted and they still had several hundred pounds of carrots to dig. With the help of NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association; http://www.nofamass.org/index.php) , we were able to mobilize 25 volunteers. Over the course of three busy days, we dug over 2,500 lbs of carrots, and also cut 35 boxes of greens, helping the farm to reach their annual donation goal, and saving some of the sweetest carrots youve ever tasted from the compost. In addition, Waltham Fields were thrilled to realize BAG could help relieve them of some excess items in their coolers cabbages and squash also meant for donation, through our new relationships with very local food pantries. They have deemed our relationship a new partnership, and we are looking forward to helping them again throughout the 2011 harvest season. Gratitude and Thanks Many thanks to the farmers who keep calling us, for their continued trust in BAG and their generosity in this endeavor to get local food to local people who need it the most. The farms who invited BAG out in 2010 include: Brighams Farm, Brox Farm, F Busa Farm (Concord), Busa Farm (Lexington), Dicks Market Garden, Drumlin Farm, the Food Project, Gore Place, Horowitz Orchard, Hutchins Farm, Kimball Fruit, Nagog Orchard, Nicewicz Orchard, Smolak Farm, Weir Farm, and Waltham Fields Community Farm. We owe much to the generous assistance offered by the non-profits with which we are so fortunate to share the office building at the old UMass Field Station in Waltham. They include: the Federation of MA Farmers Markets, 4-H of Middlesex, and Waltham Fields Community Farm. Thanks also to UMass itself, and especially to Tony Mazzeo, the buildings and grounds superintendent. In addition to the technical support we have already listed, we would like to thank Scott Munsey, John Laurenson, and Dan Melnechuk for their competent help in 2010 with both hard and soft computer stuff. Also, to Anna Watson for her editing help, and to Theresa Snow of the Vermont Food Bank for her ongoing encouragement and modeling of a successful gleaning operation. Finally to David Leslie and Michelle Holcomb of Food For Free for general and fundrasing support. And, last but never least, we are eternally thankful to our intrepid volunteers, who endure cold, heat, mud, bumpy rides, and the occasional bad direction, to cheerfully dig, chop, cut, pack, and stack the extra bounty of our Boston area farms. As the deep snows continue to recede this winter, we look forward to seeing you all very soon in 2011!

Duck and volunteers pick apples at Smolak Farm

Volunteers pick turnips at Hutchins Farm

Volunteers pick carrots at Waltham Fields Community Farm