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October 18, 2017
Nearly two dozen certified-organic produce growers and distributors joined together to ship over 70,000 pounds of organic fruit and vegetables to help Texas victims of Hurricane Harvey.
Jessie Gunn of Wholesum Harvest, who started the effort, said she paid for one of the trucks from Los Angeles to Corpus Christi, Texas.
"I knew we could not stand by and do nothing to help knowing we had the resources to send food to those without access to any, especially organic produce," Gunn said.
Tom Lively of Organically Grown Company in Eugene, Ore., and David Weinstein of Heath & Lejeune, a fresh produce wholesaler in Los Angeles, also joined in the effort, among others.
“These parties ignited a network of organic producers and had pallets upon pallets lining up to fill the trucks, so it wasn’t one farm, one grower, it was the organic agricultural industry saying, yes, absolutely we can and want to help," said Karen Salinger of Veritable Vegetable in San Francisco.
Fernando Bojorquez of F & A Freight in Nogales, Ariz., donated $5,500 to cover freight costs of the two trucks loaded with 42 pallets of organic produce, including potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, watermelons, yams, pineapples, celery, broccoli, oranges, apples, strawberries and cucumbers.
"A big thank you for your generous donation and support during this catastrophic time," said Robin Cadle, CEO of Food Bank of the Golden Crescent in Victoria, Texas, which received one of the trucks. "You are certainly hunger action heroes."
The Food Bank of Corpus Christi received the other truck full of organic produce.
The following growers donated at least a pallet of their harvest to the effort:
- ¥ Access Organics
- ¥ Andersen Organics
- ¥ AV Thomas Produce
- ¥ Awe Sum Organics
- ¥ Corona-College Heights
- ¥ Cuyama Orchards
- ¥ Covilli Brand Organics
- ¥ Deardorff Family Farms
- ¥ Deer Creek Heights Ranch
- ¥ Fraserland Organics
- ¥ Fujii Produce
- ¥ Heath & Lejeune
- ¥ Naturipe Farms
- ¥ Organically Grown Company
- ¥ Organicgirl
- ¥ Organics Unlimited
- ¥ Sundance
- ¥ The Jewel Date Company
- ¥ Top Brass Marketing
- ¥ Veritable Vegetable
- ¥ Viva Tierra
- ¥ Wholesum Family Farms
