We are the Rotunnos

Hello! We are Andy and Chelsea Rotunno. We met in 1998 at Azusa Pacific University and got married in 2003. We have five amazing children. In January 2017, our family left normal life, family, friends, work, and community in Burbank, California and moved to Gleanings For The Hungry in Dinuba, California in the Central Valley. We committed to join Gleanings’ full time missionary staff. We are honored to serve the Lord as a family. Enjoy the website and learning more about us and the Gleanings mission. We’d love to meet you too–reach out and contact us. 

Support Our Family

Give Online:  Click Here Support The Rotunno Family

Give By Mail:  Send a check made to “Gleanings For The Hungry” with Memo/Note: “Rotunno Family”, then mail it to The Rotunno Family, c/o Gleanings For The Hungry 43029 Road 104, Dinuba, CA 93618

This photo was taken January 21, 2017 on the night our family arrived and moved in at Gleanings For The Hungry.

Gleanings For The Hungry

Gleanings For The Hungry is a Christian mission and mercy ministry of YWAM (Youth With A Mission) founded in 1982 by Wally and Norma Wenge. Our mission is to feed the hungry of the world physically and spiritually. We produce 60-100 truckloads of nutritious, shelf-stable food, primarily dry soup mix and sun-dried peaches. All this food is shipped to international Christian missionaries enabling them to meet physical needs, share the Gospel, and demonstrate the love of Christ. We host over 3000 volunteers throughout each year who serve with us, making meals for the hungry.

Jesus

There are so many wonderful and amazing things about Gleanings For The Hungry and God’s kingdom work through our mission. But, the best thing about it all is Jesus! The whole reason we do all this work and ministry is to give people a chance to know Christ. He makes all the difference. Gleanings is much more than a beautiful place to serve. We’ve learned to see Gleanings as the father’s ranch from Luke 15. Gleanings is a place where the Lord reveals His heart for His creation–a lost, broken, and hurting world.  

Gleanings Peaches

Sun-dried peaches are grown, harvested, and dried right here in the Central Valley’s hot sun. This is Gleanings For The Hungry’s legacy product. Back in 1982, our founders, Wally and Norma Wenge, had a vision to dehydrate California produce and send it to Christian missionaries to feed the hungry and share the Gospel. They found willing family farms in Kingsburg, California who were ready to offer their “cull” or unmarketable peaches and nectarines to the Wenge’s as they pioneered the Gleanings For The Hungry ministry for Christ. Today, we still make delicious sun-dried peaches. This summer we will invite about 1000 youth and young adults to serve with us and produce more Gleanings sun-dried peaches for Christian missions. Our ministry partners tell us, “The fruit brings joy to the children!” 

Gleanings Soup Mix

Our founder, Wally Wenge’s long term vision was to produce a highly nutritious, shelf-stable, vegetable soup mix. In 2000, one year after Wally went home to be with the Lord, the Gleanings staff was pioneering again, this time bagging the first Gleanings soup mix by scooping small measuring cups of ingredients onto a 20-foot conveyor they pulled out of the equipment “bone-yard.” Then then graduated to tumbling larger amounts of soup mix in a cement mixer, but a few years later a local supporter encouraged the staff to find a proper food-grade mixer for Gleanings soup mix and he promised to buy it! Since then we’ve made many other upgrades to the Gleanings Soup Plant. In 2018, we installed a second line with a food-grade form-fill bagger. Today we can mix, pack, and palletize from one to six semi-truck loads in a single week. That somewhere between 300,000 to 1,500,000 meals! Our standard soup mix recipe contains split peas, lentils, rice, pasta, and dehydrated potatoes. Many of those ingredients are donated directly from generous farming families. We include many other nutritious ingredients as they are available.  

More to come about Gleanings Ministry Partners

Stay tuned

More to come about children who receive Gleanings food

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Opportunities to Volunteer and Serve

Would you like to come out to Central California, stay with us, and volunteer at Gleanings? There is always meaningful work to do to help move the Lord’s mission forward. You can come visit us and get a taste of the work in a single morning. You can sign up to volunteer for the week, just like you would sign up for a retreat. You can also sign up to serve longer term, for a few weeks or even a season. Signing up and making a reservation to serve with us is a great idea for individuals, families, and church groups. Ask us about how to get your hands dirty and help us make food for the hungry that will go out with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Working with Farmers

My main role (Andy) at Gleanings is Director of Procurement and Distribution. That means I get to work with the Lord as he calls people to give generously to this mission in so many ways. Much of the food Gleanings processes, packs, and ships is given directly from the farmers who grew it on their land. Peaches, nectarines, rice, split peas, lentils–these nutritious foods are all given in the name of Jesus by generous, faithful farmers. I’ve met them. I’ve stood on their fields and in their orchards. My respect for farming families has sky-rocketed since I’ve started serving at Gleanings in this role. Every year these farmers work so hard to get a decent crop off their land. Many decide way ahead of time to give to the Lord from whatever harvest they receive. There are so many stories to tell about faith-filled Gleanings farmers. Stay tuned.  

Discipling Young Adults

We have been involved with youth and young adult ministry for nearly 30 years. One of our first major roles when we came to Gleanings For The Hungry was to lead the Summer Staff, a servant leadership and discipleship program. It has been a great privilege to invest in the lives of these incredible young people as they commit to serve in our summer fruit-drying production. Our goal is to see the lives of young servant leaders transformed by the love of God and the light of Christ. Do you know a young adult, age 18-25, who might be interested in a summer of service, discipleship, ministry, Christian community, and hard work?

Missions Opportunities

Would you like to join us on a visit to a Gleanings international ministry partner? Recently, we have made three trips to Guatemala to visit our amazing partners, Hope Of The Nations. These are typically 7-day trips, hosted by our friends and partners. We go with a motto “We want to meet the people you love!” We meet a lot of wonderful people, we get lots of hugs, and we get to stir big pots of soup mix! If you are interested in going to Guatemala with us, or maybe another country where Gleanings food is distributed, contact us.

Gleanings YouTube Channel

Learn more about Gleanings’ mission by watching some of the many videos on Gleanings For The Hungry YouTube channel.