fresh produce

On a recent sweltering morning, a bevy of volunteers unloaded fresh produce off a truck and divided the fruits and veggies into laundry baskets lined along the sidewalk at a local school.

For their sweat and toil, some of the volunteers got to add a squash or other extra leftover piece of produce to their baskets, for which they had pre-paid $15 online.

Perhaps getting about $50 worth of fresh produce for $15, meeting new friends and doing something good for the community is payment enough for them.

Bountiful Baskets is a non-profit co-op based in Mesa that offers conventional and organic produce, said Sally Stevens, who co-founded the volunteer organization with fellow mother, Tanya Jolly.

Stevens explained that the produce is fresh and inexpensive because it is ordered locally from the wholesale market and handled by volunteers, instead of a paid staff.

“We work on getting local produce, so most of the winter produce is very local to Arizona.” In the summertime, however, most of the produce comes from as close to Arizona as possible, since not much grows here during the hotter months, she said.

Produce that is not grown locally also comes from as nearby as possible. “We get bananas from family farms in Central Mexico instead of the Caribbean, because Mexico is closer,” she said. “Plus, we like to support family farms.”

Bountiful Baskets has been available in Yuma for a little over a year, she said. “It's kind of like one of those best-kept secrets. We never do any marketing. It's all word of mouth. It's not a business, and we don't make any money off of it, so certainly we can't pay for advertising. It's just something that my best friend and I started.”

Her friend, Tanya Jolly, started the first site in Mesa about seven years ago, Stevens started one in Gilbert about a year later, and then they merged the two on the Internet in May of 2006. Both having grown up in California, where fresh, inexpensive produce is abundant, they wanted their own families and everyone else to have the opportunity to eat healthy foods every day for life, Stevens said.

“We began blessing our families, then we started blessing others as well.”

Bountiful Baskets is neither a business nor a non-profit organization, she said. “It's just a group of people that get together and split up produce.”

That seems like a pretty modest comment from someone who, along with her co-founder, puts in about 80 hours a week making wholesale produce available to people in seven states. So just what do they get out of it?

“We love seeing families being able to eat healthy for life,” she said. “If you go down on a Saturday morning, you'll understand what we get out of it. It's like Christmas. We get to watch all these people basically have Christmas morning every other week. It's very rewarding in its own way.”

That's not to say, however, that the hard work doesn't get to them. “We both quit on a daily basis,” she said, chuckling. But it's the letters that keep them going.

One woman posted a story on Bountiful Basket's Facebook page, telling how her husband had been told to change his lifestyle and diet habits or he would die, she said. “So it scared him and they started doing Bountiful Baskets, and a year later, he ran his first half-marathon.”

Another letter came from a girl who wrote that her since her mother could afford Bountiful Baskets, she no longer had to eat cat food, Stevens said. “So people out there suffer, and knowing that we're able to help those people is what keeps us going.”

The Bountiful Baskets' premise is simple, she said. People chip in $15 each over the Bountiful Baskets website, and then show up on Saturday mornings at the location and time posted on the website. Although not every person needs to volunteer, those who want to are asked to show up one hour early to help unload and divide up the produce, she said.

“And then they take their produce and go home.”

People who don't volunteer but who have contributed their $15 may simply swing by to pick up their two baskets each, one filled with fruits and the other with vegetables. Any baskets not picked up by a specified time are donated to a local fire station,

Lori Howe, volunteer coordinator in Yuma, got involved with Bountiful Baskets in January, after hearing about the co-op from a friend. “There are wonderful fruits and vegetables, the selections are really good, and I thought I could help my community out,” she said.

She receives two baskets of produce every two weeks for the time she spends online and on site, coordinating efforts to get the proper amount of produce to each person who chips in their $15.

Verna Williams began participating in Bountiful Baskets about two weeks ago, just as her daughter has been doing for some time. Taking a quick break from divvying up produce, Williams said she's not only there for fresh produce at a great deal. “It's something to do to get the day started. It's a lot of fun. You meet new people, make more friends.”

Stevens said only conventional produce is available in Yuma, but with enough interest from participants, organic could be available as well.

To participate, log on to bountifulbaskets.org at 9 a.m. on Tuesdays, or 10 p.m. on Wednesday, chip in your contribution using a debit or credit card, and then “the magic all happens behind the scenes” and your produce will be ready on the posted date and time at the posted location, she said.

She recommends reading all the information on the website before starting the program, to avoid any frustration or misunderstandings.