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About Us
Our members & volunteers
The Sweet Home Gleaners, Inc. is a 501 c 3 Non-Profit Gleaning Organization with a Thrift Shop. The thrift shop is our main ongoing fundraiser. The money the thrift shop generates, donations, and fundraisers go towards paying the bills to keep the building open, so we are able to supply food for our low-income members. Food donated is provided to the low-income families who are members of our gleaning organization. We are an all volunteer organization and everyone seen working in our thrift shop and helping with food distribution are not paid for their time. We accept clothing and household goods for selling in our thrift shop and provide a receipt to individuals and business who donate to our organization.
Our history
The Sweet Home Gleaners, Inc., a nonprofit organization, was founded in the early 1970's Sweet Home, Oregon by two individuals who work for Head Start. The women were brought together by a need to help low-income families enrolled in the Head Start Program with feeding their families through local farm donations. Elenore Philips began volunteering shortly after the start of the organization and later became the coordinator. A few years later, they opened the program up to low-income families and began operating in a partnership with Community Services Consortium's Gleaning Program through Linn-Benton Food Share. In 1986, the organization was incorporated under name Sweet Home Gleaners and Emergency Food Bank and acquired our 501(c) 3 status. Later that year the name was changed to The Sweet Home Gleaners, Inc. During Eleanor's time with our organization, we were able to acquire our existing building.
Since that time, our gleaning program has grown to fill the niche in the food chain for low-income families throughout East Linn County. We serve members from Cascadia through the east side of Lebanon and Brownsville to the Scio/Lacomb area. We have members from newborn to 100 years of age. The key difference between Gleaners and food box agencies is the requirement of membership and giving back to the organization in order for the gleaning program to function. We help our membership through our membership volunteering for the organization. Our members can glean crops, pick up food from stores, participate in warehouse repack at Linn Benton Food Share, pick up food from Linn Benton Food Share and other locations designated by Linn Benton Food Share, or helping with our various fundraisers.
We have expanded to offer Wi-Fi internet and a few computers for individuals to use for job searching, school work, and various other needs.
Our mission
The mission of The Sweet Home Gleaners, Inc. is to serve as East Linn County’s gleaning program by distributing food weekly to our members on a per person basis with adoptees taking precedence.