Volunteer Newsletter Apr 17, 2025
Volunteer Experience at the
Giant Orange Orchard
Sign Up for Orchard Harvests
Upcoming Harvest Schedule
 

In a valley driven by progress, this orange grove is an outlier.  It offers a moment to breathe in deeply and a chance to reconnect—with the land, with each other, and with the everlasting rhythms of life. -Vicky Nunes

As we help share healthy food throughout our community, volunteers at the "Giant Orange Orchard" in North San Jose make lasting memories and build our own ties with this land we call home.

In this edition of our newsletter, Village Harvest volunteer and writer Vicky Nunes shares a wide and beautiful perspective on the volunteer experience at these orange orchard harvests. Read her full article below.

Already this season, we have picked and donated over 62,000 pounds of oranges at the Giant Orange Orchard. This amazing effort has benefited thousands of local families and community members! And we're not done yet -- we're still making our way across all of the orchard's 1400 trees.

We have several more orange orchard harvests scheduled for late April and early May. Check out the full event details and sign up for your next harvest.

Next Tuesday, April 22 we will also harvest home fruit trees in San Jose. 5 more volunteers are needed for this event - come join the "Tuesday team" fun!

You can submit a sign up request for any home harvest or orchard harvest on our Events calendar. We'll be announcing even more events in a few weeks.

Take good care, and hope to see you soon out in the orange trees!

Megan Elmore
Orchard Harvest Coordinator
megan@villageharvest.org
 

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Volunteers in The Last Orange Grove in San Jose

Author: Vicky Nunes, volunteer

In the heart of Silicon Valley, where the quiet hum of progress and electric vehicles override the ancient whispers of the earth, an enchanting orange grove stands proud as a rare hint of a slower, simpler time.

While most orchards fell to property developers, this grove continues to thrive by the care of volunteers—men, women, and children equipped with ladders and pole pickers, baskets and garden gloves, eager to gather what the earth provides.

Among the volunteers, humanity shines through simple yet profound moments:

A seven-year-old junior farmer explaining the lifecycle of an orange to preschoolers, her voice alight with the wonder of bees and blossoms; 

A volunteer reveling in a sensory vacation – the delicious scent of the grove and the sunset filtering through the trees.

For others, the opportunity to spend time with like-minded souls is a highlight of their week.

Others embrace the opportunity to burn calories while having fun, like the woman dedicating 50 hours of service for her 50th year.

Fruit that might have gone to waste is donated to Second Harvest of Silicon Valley and other food banks, while even the imperfect “seconds” inspire creativity.  Volunteers salvage the fruit deemed unsuitable for donation to make orange juice, fruit leather, cardamom-spiced marmalade, orange cakes, and other homemade “taste-of-sunshine” gifts to share with friends and neighbors.

Whether drawn by benevolence, aesthetics, harmony with nature, or the connections forged beneath the branches, the volunteers embody the orchard’s enduring spirit.

In a valley driven by progress, this orange grove is an outlier.  It offers a moment to breathe in deeply and a chance to reconnect—with the land, with each other, and with the everlasting rhythms of life.

To those who consider joining the harvest, the orchard offers this: come, you’ll be happy you joined us, and we’ll be happy to have you. There is humble work to be done, fruit to be saved, and in the giving, a piece of yourself to be found.
 

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More BIG Harvests at the North San Jose Orange Orchard

Come out and join us at the "Giant Orange Orchard!" This agricultural oasis in North San Jose is a family treasure, owned and operated by the same family for over 108 years now. They found Village Harvest in 2018, and since then have donated their entire crop to help local families and community members in need.

At each of our harvests here, volunteers walk the orchard rows and pick buckets of oranges from the abundantly-bearing trees. The orchard family pitches in, too, driving farm tractors with special trailers that make it possible for volunteers to harvest as much as 20,000 pounds in a morning.

If you would like to come volunteer with a group of 5 or more, please email Tracy with information about your group and which dates you might like to join.

Here are our newly scheduled orchard harvests in need of volunteers.