This Week's Bountiful Basket and Volunteering Fun

I haven't posted our Bountiful Basket bounty for a while, so I thought it would be fun show everyone this week's haul! I know I have mentioned my fondness for Bountiful Baskets before, but it really is a great opportunity to take advantage of low cost, high quality produce. This week we received:

• A large head of leaf lettuce
• a large bag of spinach
• a head of cauliflower
• 3 butternut squash
• a bundle of white asparagus (A great delicacy. The kids won't touch the green variety, but were fighting over the white....does that make them vegetable snobs?)
• a 3 pound bunch of green grapes
• 4 mangoes
• 5 bananas
• 9 peaches
• 8 giant plums
• 10 limes
  

I always split my basket with my dear friend. If this might be to many fruits and veggies for your family, only order every other week or split the cost with a friend or neighbor, too.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, Bountiful Baskets Co-op relies on volunteers to make each site successful. Bountiful Baskets is NOT a business. It is a voluntary organization. They do not make any money from this venture. In fact, the sites main coordinators (Sally and Tanya), who are based in Arizona, do this as a volunteer service. Most co-op's I have heard about require that participants help run the site (to keep costs down). That is why if you want to participate in Bountiful Baskets you should plan to help out at least one Saturday every other month (but feel free to go as often as you can!)

I decided to practice what I preach, and went to volunteer this morning! I showed up bright and early at 6:45 a.m. (with a LARGE Diet Coke stowed in the Suburban). I have to say it was a blast! I made some new friends. Got a semi aerobic workout (helping lift boxes of produce out of the semi truck, dividing out fruits and veggies, and squatting to load baskets into participants baskets). Visited with a few participants and volunteers. Got a bonus produce item in my basket for helping out, and scored the perfect cardboard boxes for storing empty quart canning jars in! Here are some important things to remember when you go to volunteer:

• Dress for the weather!
• Wear clothes that can get dirty.
• Wear close toed shoes. It really hurts if you drop boxes on naked toes!
• Show up at least one hour early. Check The Bountiful Basket web site for the time volunteers should be at your site.
• Be prepared to stay the entire time the site is open (it will take about 2 hours).
• Have FUN!