Our holiday adventures included picking oranges and tangerines in my sister’s neighborhood. A year ago, she noticed the citrus going to waste in her southern California town and thought about her social work clients who need food.
To help connect the going-to-waste fruit to those who would welcome eating it, she created a little project she calls Backyard Bounty. She coordinates groups of friends, or her daughter’s Daisy troop, to pick the trees of people she has approached about getting their excess produce to those in need. So on Christmas Day, 10 of us picked three heavily laden trees. My kids and their cousin reached what they could and then climbed into the trees, handing fruit down to their grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
It was a different type of family adventure for us, but sold me on doing charitable work as a family. We helped contribute 8 bins and two 5-gallon buckets of fresh produce to the local food bank. Good work, and good work together.
Family Adventuring 