How I Spend my Saturday Mornings

A little over a year ago, I found out about a program called Bountiful Baskets and that a site was opening up in my town.  I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I decided to make a contribution that week, and have been contributing most weeks for the past year.

So, what is Bountiful Baskets?  It is a food co-op that is run solely by volunteers.  People who want to participate make a weekly contribution of $15 for a regular basket or $25 for an organic basket.  Contribution time starts Monday at noon, local time for your pick up site, and ends Tuesday evenings.  The more people that participate and contribute, the better the deals they can get on produce, which is bought wholesale from distributors who also supply grocery stores and restaurants.  Along with the basket, there are also a variety extras available for purchase, breads, cultural food packs, and cases of fruits and vegetables.  You can learn more about Bountiful Baskets here: http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/

Baskets ready for produce

After you have made your weekly contribution, pick up is on Saturday mornings, the time varies by the site.  Each site is run by a Volunteer Site Coordinator, or a team of VSCs, and then they ask participants that can to volunteer to divide up the produce that arrives.  Baskets are lined up in pairs, one side for fruits, one side for veggies.  To give you an idea, here is a picture of the baskets lined up at one of the sites I participate and volunteer with.

The truck comes, the boxes are unloaded, the produce is divided evenly in the baskets.  This week was a pretty good week, we got a lot of great things.

Regular basket from 9/3 Bountiful Baskets

Pictured to the right is the regular basket that is a $15 contribution, plus an extra item for volunteering.  Great deal if you ask me!  Throughout this week as I prepare these items, I will post about how it gets used at my house.