Here teamwork certainly makes the dream work.
Produce Good is working with lol
food agencies to host a gleaning
event showing how San Diego giv.
So joining us live this morning
Coexecutive director of Produce Good.
We have Nita here and Vanessa Ruiz from
the San Diego Food Bank. Good te
you both. Hi. Thank you so much.
So I do want to talk about
this because you have this delis
produce here and gleaning is what you do.
It is tell us. For people who don't know,
this was a new word to me last year when
I started hearing more and more gleaners.
What is cleaning? First
of all, people? It's not cleane.
We're not cleaning people.
We're not a cleaning service.
But cleaning is the ancient prae
of taking excess and giving it
to those in need.
That's the short answer.
And we do that every day of
the year at Produce Good.
We are taking all of that exces,
lots of citrus.
When you're driving around the county,
you see all those trees.
We're getting that before it
falls on the ground and we are
taking it to one of over 80
agencies that we work with.
Feeding agencies.
Amazing. And we don't want
to see this go to waste. No.
And this was actually picked.
These are are, you know,
these are fresh from the tree.
And you know we don't say ugly.
We just say cosmetically
challenged. You know,
the little bumpy got a little
couple things but you know,
there's nothing wrong with that.
Who doesn't have a few bumps
and wrinkles and all that.
Yeah, that's good stuff on the inside.
Delicious. Which of course the d
bank benefits from. Right. Vane.
That's correct.
We have been partnering with Nita and
Produce Good for many years now, 2016.
And I mean this is what is
important here in San Diego,
is its partners coming together
to address food insecurity.
San Diego Food Bank is feeding
over 400,000 people every single
month throughout a network
of 500 different partners.
And we can't do that without our donors
and our supporters like Produce Good,
who are out there helping and
gleaming and bringing that wonderful,
cosmetically
challenged, maybe, but often also very
beautiful produce back to
those families. And it
would be so tragic. And I see ts
sometimes in people's backyards
and things, when this falls
on the ground and just
like this mold or the rats
come, they want to eat it, You t
to get it before it falls.
That's why I started this ten years ago,
because it was just so painful.
It's like someone's got to be dg
something like it's on the grou,
let's not, you know, go go to we
and that's where this all began.
And where are you doing
this type of bleeding?
We do it all over the backyard.
So we, our backyards range from
one tree to 1000 trees and we
also work at farmers markets and
at small grocers and small farm.
So we are people who can't realy
do it all themselves, correct.
And we are taking that immediaty
that day to the closest partner agency
and feeding those folks who youw
otherwise would not get this beautiful,
nutritious.
And it's good hard work, but good work,
right? Yeah, outdoors in nature.
Love it. It's really a fun thing
to do for volunteering as well.
This Friday, you have a big kickoff event,
right? Tell us about it. We do.
We do. So it's called San Diego Gleams
and it's basically a kickoff toe
much larger event next Thursday,
which is San Diego Gibbs.
And that's the day of giving coy
September 7th, everybody. Yeah. But what
is exciting about our event on Friday
is that what we've done is taken
partner agencies that are also t
of San Diego Gibbs that we workh
all the time like like I said ad
and we are taking them and thein
employees and they're coming to glean
and then take it back to their agencies.
So it's a full circle thing and we're
showing how our nonprofits work together.
I mean we're actually like highlighting it
in real life how we actually do the work.
So many good people here in
our community of an AS we
only have a few seconds left.
But the need right now,
how high is it? Well,
there's over 700,000 people thae
nutrition and secure in San Die.
So and these partnerships
are extremely important.
I'm excited to get in some jeans
and AT shirt on Friday and start
gleaning those lemons, save
the produce before it falls
to the ground real quick.
I need that before we go. Can pe
help glean any time of year? Ye,
if they go to our website, producegood.org,
we have a calendar and we are,
we are doing some kind of gleang
almost every single day of the .
So lots of opportunities,
beautiful trees with fruits.
Exactly. Thank you very much for
all you do and that'll do it fo.
We'll be right back after this break.