Gleaning Program

We're putting unharvested fruit trees to good use for our community.

Two ways you can get involved: Donate your harvest or volunteer time to help us harvest!

OPtion 1: Donate your Harvest

Your tree. Your neighborhood. Real impact.

If you have a fruit tree that produces more than you can use — or one that's been going unharvested for a few years because life got busy — we'd love to work with you.

Mint 'N More Foundation's community gleaning program connects fruit tree owners in Knoxville with volunteer harvesters who do the picking for you. The fruit goes to Gathered Local Foods, where it's made available to the community on a free-will donation basis, or directly to local food pantries. Either way, it feeds your neighbors instead of feeding the ground.

Here's how it works:

You fill out a short form telling us about your tree — what kind of fruit it produces and roughly when it typically ripens. When harvest season rolls around, we'll reach out to confirm timing and schedule a visit. A small volunteer team comes to you, handles all the picking, cleans up after themselves, and hauls everything away. If you'd like to keep a portion of the harvest for yourself, just say so — we'll set it aside for you.

We bring the bags, fruit pickers, and the people. We carry liability insurance covering our volunteers while they're on your property. All we need from you is a little information and permission to come pick.

There's no cost, no commitment beyond a single season, and no pressure to participate again if it isn't a good fit. But we think you might enjoy knowing your tree is doing something good for Knoxville.

Ready to share your harvest? Fill out our quick form and we will be in touch!

Tell us about your fruit tree

Option 2: Volunteer to GLEAN

A couple hours. Fresh air. Food that goes straight to your neighbors.

Gleaning is one of the oldest forms of community — the idea that what one person can't use, another person can. Mint 'N More Foundation is building a volunteer crew to do just that: harvest fruit from trees around Knoxville whose owners can't keep up with the picking, and get that fruit to people who can use it.

Gleaned fruit goes to Gathered Local Foods, where it's available to the community on a free-will donation basis, or to local food pantries. You'll leave each harvest knowing exactly where the food went.

What to expect:

When fruit is ready and a harvest is scheduled, we'll reach out to volunteers on our list who are available. Harvests are typically a few hours on a weekday or weekend morning — outdoors, active, and social. We keep teams small so there's room to actually learn something: how to spot ripe fruit, how to handle it so it keeps, and what happens to it after it leaves the tree. No experience is needed and we'll show you everything as we go.

Over time, we hope gleaning becomes a gateway into more of what MNM offers — our cooking and food preservation classes, the Gathered Local Foods market, and our broader community around local food and agriculture. But if you just want to show up and pick fruit, that's plenty.