Our first Coronado Home Harvest, a free homegrown fruit, vegetable and flower exchange held June 26, was a stunning success with 28 people joining in by bringing baskets, bags, boxes and just plain handfuls of beautiful of home grown fruits, veggies, herbs and plants, as well as homemade cookies and candy, to share. Many “look-i-loos” stopped by as well, asking what we were up to, many filling out membership applications after hearing what CHH is all about. And then there were the folks who drove by, saw what was going on and went home to bring back little bits from their gardens to donate so they could be involved as well, not even asking for a bag in return.
Thanks go to the Library for providing the locale, and to our volunteers who checked people in, sorted produce and filled bags.Thanks to everyone for beautiful donations and for being on time to drop your bounty off and pick up your bags of what all of us had to share.
The day could not have gone more smoothly.
Sharon Sherman, one of the founding organizers, writes “I, for one, had a great afternoon sorting my bag of goodies. The lavender and rose sachet found a home in my linen cabinet; I cooked a mess of the greens (some of my own even making it into the bag I took home!); grated those gorgeous carrots into a slaw with some of the shared lemons being used in the dressing, and ate some of the wonderful oranges straight from the bag. The herbs are in a pretty vase on my kitchen window sill, waiting to be used in new recipes, and the plant I chose at the end of the exchange will be in my garden tomorrow.”
“What a wonderful feeling it is to have shared in the start of this new adventure. Watching the day unfold brought thoughts to me of “community” at its best: neighbors visiting, sharing, helping and caring. Anyone who came by today, whether to participate, observe or just to visit, could not help but be touched by the experience.”
Coronado Home Harvest is definitely a work in progress so we invite you to send your suggestions to [email protected]. You might want to check out our website at www.coronadohomeharvest.com to see photos of the Saturday’s events, find links to other like minded organizations, volunteer to sort, and maybe even hop on our blog.
So, we hope to see you all next month. July 17, 2010. Drop off from 8am-10am, pick up from 12 -1pm. And, with the weather (hopefully!) warming up, there will be even more beautiful produce, and more delicious homemade goodies, to find in our bags at the end of the next exchange. Please help spread the word about CHH to friends and family so it will grow and grow.
