Volunteer Newsletter Jan 17, 2025
Become a Super-Volunteer!
Neighborhood Harvests Next Month
Upcoming Harvest Schedule
 

Citrus season has started! Our first harvest of three homes in Los Altos last Saturday gathered over 1,100 pounds of oranges, lemons, grapefruit, and some rarer treats like pomelos and calamondins, also called calamansi. All were shared with Second Harvest of Silicon Valley to benefit families and community members in need.

Our upcoming home harvest events are:

• Tuesday Jan 21 in San Jose - all spots already filled


• Sunday Jan 26 in Mountain View/Los Altos - 10 volunteers needed


• Tuesday Jan 28 in San Jose - 6 volunteers needed

Did you see us in the San Jose Mercury News earlier this month? Our volunteers were featured in an article about sharing the bounty of apricots and preserving the legacy of the Saratoga Heritage Orchard, as well as our long history of year-round home harvests. If you're a Mercury subscriber, you can read the article here.

Village Harvest has also recently received a grant from the California Water Service, the water company serving Los Altos. Thank you to Cal Water for their ongoing support of our community service!

To support more harvest events this year - meaning more fruit shared with neighbors in need, and more opportunities for volunteers to harvest - we need the help of volunteer harvest leaders, assistants, van drivers and more. Curious about how you can help (and get into more harvests)? Learn more below about becoming a super-volunteer.

Look out for our February harvest opportunities in the next newsletter. We're planning many more home harvests, some fun neighborhood harvests, as well as a return to the Lemon Ladies orchard in the hills of Redwood City.

Megan Elmore
Orchard Harvest Coordinator
megan@villageharvest.org
 

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Join Our Team of Super-Volunteers!

Village Harvest needs the talents (and a little time) of more volunteers to make more harvests possible. Could you join our group of 30 super-volunteers? It's fun, satisfying, and a great way to help the community.

• Harvest Leaders and Assistants teach, guide, and coach volunteers through a morning event. You can get started as an assistant by coming to harvests to shadow experienced leaders and try out harvest support tasks.


• Van Drivers drive the Village Harvest owned van, or vans of food agency partners, to carry equipment and fruit during a harvest event.


• Harvest Planners determine which homes we will harvest and coordinate arrangements in advance with homeowners and volunteers. Volunteer by home by computer or phone, with relatively flexible hours.


• Volunteer Photographers come to a morning harvest to take pictures of our work together. This helps us share what Village Harvest does in our community through our newsletter, website, and more.

Most of these roles don't take much more time than regular volunteering, and these super-volunteers have the opportunity to enjoy more harvests themselves. We'll arrange remote and in-harvest training to get you started.

More descriptions are on the website Volunteer Opportunities page; please email Tracy to ask questions or to offer to help. 
 

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Neighborhood Harvests Coming Up in February

We're planning a series of Neighborhood Harvests during the next two months, harvesting homes within one neighborhood with volunteers usually walking, not driving, between homes. They're our suburban orchard harvests filled with abundant oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and other citrus in season.

In February, watch this space for our announcement of neighborhood harvests in San Jose and Mountain View. We'll be out there with our pole pickers once the fruit is ripe and ready!

Would you like to help us organize a harvest in your neighborhood? It's a great service project for youth and a fun way to help and get to know your neighbors. Village Harvest serves the mid-peninsula and South Bay, from Palo Alto to San Jose, and we would be happy to make more neighborhood harvests in this region possible. Contact Megan for more information.