More Bountiful Baskets

Bountiful Baskets has a pick-up in our town every other week. When the weather was nicer, it was in a cul-de-sac, but now that winter is here, it takes place in the lunchroom of one of the local schools. Since it is a volunteer operation, it is expected that folks who participate come early once in a while to help prepare the baskets. That is what we did this morning.

When we got to the school at 7:45 AM, the delivery truck had just arrived. They off-loaded all the cases of things on to the sidewalk to be carried inside. In the meantime, other volunteers set out the baskets for the day. Today, 79 baskets had been ordered, so we set out 2 baskets for each order, one for the fruit and one for the vegetables.

The cases of produce are then placed at the end of each row, ready to distribute. The lady who is the coordinator tells the volunteers how much to put in each basket, as it varies from week to week. Today, for example, the fruit basket had 1 pineapple, 1 cantaloupe, 1 honeydew melon, 7 bananas, 6 apples, and 4 pears.



The vegetable baskets had 7-8 red potatoes, 4-6 parsnips, 4 tomatoes, 1 head of red leaf lettuce, celery, 3 green peppers and radishes. It takes nearly an hour to get all the food into the baskets. There are usually extra things left, but not enough to go into each basket, so the extras are sort of randomly placed. So today some folks got an extra pineapple or cantaloupe, some got extra apples or bananas or extra lettuce. They divide it up as evenly as possible. People are allowed to order 1-3 baskets for $15 each.

At 8:45, people start picking up their produce. They bring bags, boxes, coolers and laundry baskets to take their food home in. We usually pick ours up in a large laundry basket. Once people are signed in, they are given a fruit basket and a vegetable basket and asked to transfer the food to their own container. As they leave, they take the two smaller baskets to a table where they are cleaned and stacked for the next time.



In addition to the regular baskets, there are sometimes special offerings. During canning season, for an additional charge, they often have cases of fruit available. Once thing they always offer is bread. Today we chose to order the 9-grain bread which comes in bags of 5 loaves for $10. It keeps nicely in my freezer until I am ready to use it.



An hour and a half after arriving, we went home with all our goodies. One lady said, "It's almost like Christmas, coming to see what will be in the basket for us to take home each time!"

Bountiful baskets currently offers pick up locations in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.