Excellence in Innovation

SPONSOR: Dominican University of California

2011 Award Recipient: Marin Organic

Marin Organic is an association of 40 organic producers whose livelihood is based on a respect for nature and a sense of place.

Marin Organic’s flagship initiative, the Organic School Lunch and Gleaning Program provides access to healthy, local food for residents, bridging the gap between Organic farms and schools by gleaning, donating and delivering food aesthetically unfit for market.

The programs success is rooted in community support and engagement, from the volunteer Glean Team to the popular Farm Days, where schoolchildren visit an organic farm to learn hands-on about sustainable agriculture and help harvest food.

Marin Organic began promoting ‘gleaned” food when producers volunteered their time to gather extras from their fields and give them to resource centers. Farmers couldn’t harvest all the un-sellable produce so Marin Organic stepped in to help.

To date, they have rescued over 160,000 pounds of free, organic lettuce, potatoes, cucumbers, spinach, carrots, zucchini, lemons, meat, eggs and Straus milk and yogurt, and delivered to the kitchens of half of the county’s schools, and 27 community resource centers.

Thanks to their efforts with National Gleaning Day and their Thanks-gleaning day with Novato School District, which gathered thousands of pounds of organic food for the county’s hungry, an independent gleaning effort is now happening every week in East Marin for those who cannot get to West Marin’s farms.

Marin Organic’s gleaning effort is a perfect example of responsiveness to both an abundance and shortage of resources. With an estimated 20-30% of all food that is grown left unpicked, all farming communities have an abundance of great food.

Farmers, who are often short on daylight hours and laborers, cannot be relied on to always harvest their seconds.

Leaving extras in the field to rot and be plowed back to nourish the soil is a good outcome, though not quite as rewarding as having those foods picked and enjoyed.

While gleaning is an age-old concept, this project is innovative in it’s responsiveness and reflects strong leadership to effectively collaborate with many partners – from farms to under-resourced public schools which often have complex and bureaucratic systems for food services and are often only able to afford the lowest quality, most economical ingredients.

Gleaning is the sort of innovative resource management needed in times like these, using collaboration and teamwork to shorten the supply chain.

The Excellence in Innovation Award and $5,000 is presented to an individual, organization or partnership that has developed new, creative and effective strategies for advancing solutions to critical issues in our community.

Download Heart of Marin Brochure and Form

1. Briefly state the nominee’s mission and services offered.

2. How has the nominee elevated the field by advancing new approaches, concepts, initiatives, strategies, or structures that inspire breakthrough thinking, and serve as a model for others?

3. Describe how this innovation reflects responsiveness, good management practices, and effectiveness.

4. What makes it innovative? Provide a specific example or story that demonstrates utilization of innovation in this practice.

5. Explain how the level of excellence is assessed and measured; include emerging evidence or results if possible.