“Yes, Virginia, One Person Can Make a Difference”

A day in the life of a gleaner

“You take a small or medium?” David Skoke asks me when I enter his meticulous yet modest home in the East Lake section of Atlanta. A t-shirt in each size with the words “Helping Feed Atlanta” sit on the coffee table. I put on one while he finishes up his work as an independent stock trader. He grabs his Samsung cell phone and we head out to the old white van parked in the driveway, a brightly colored cornucopia and the same words from the t-shirts painted on the side. It is 9:30 AM on a Monday and I am assisting him with his “route” today.

David gleans fresh “unsellable but still edible” produce from supermarkets and delivers it to non-profit organizations serving those in need. He currently picks up from four supermarkets, and he delivers to three different organizations every Monday.

If he has food left at the end of the day on Mondays, he drops it at the Atlanta Mission, an emergency and transitional home and soup kitchen right near where the new College Football Hall of Fame is currently being built in downtown Atlanta. But he doesn’t always have much by the end of the day.

“There are a lot of hungry people out there, and no matter how much I get, it’s never enough,” he tells me.