Organic Growers Support the Louisiana Flood Victims

Fourteen certified organic growers and distributors, from Portland, Oregon, Southern California and Nogales, Ariz., donated over 34,000 pounds of fresh organic fruit and vegetables and will shipped them into Lafayette, La., to support the victims of the August floods, over 45,000 of whom are still in compromised food situations, living in hotels, hostels or in homes that have been gutted due to the flood damage.

Jessie Gunn, of Wholesum Harvest, began coordinating the effort after seeing only nonperishable food requests on relief websites and was confident the organic community would do something about it. The Wholesum Harvest team was on board right away, and Ricardo Crisantes, vice president of sales and marketing, helped Gunn to make the connections to fill a truck with fresh organic produce. "I hopped on the phone to find a relief agency that could accept and distribute the food and found Second Harvest Food Bank and it was an immediate yes, they were blown away, and so we set the organic network in to action," Gunn says. "In all honesty it took a total of five phone calls, and three were finding the food bank that could take it, then I called David [Weinstein of Heath & Lejeune], and then Tom [Lively of Organically Grown Company], and the rest came together quickly and well, organically."

Heath & Lejeune is the organic distributor in Los Angeles that donated the cooler space and the staff to build the truck. Weinstein started calling growers to see who could do what as far as donations. Organically Grown Company, a distributor based in Eugene, Ore. Lively heard the idea and immediately sent broadcasting emails to find out what growers in that region could offer. It was two days and the truck was fully committed with 24 pallets and 34,000 pounds of all organic produce like; potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, watermelons, yams, pineapples, celery, broccoli, oranges, apples, strawberries and cucumbers.

The organic produce industry mobilizing to support people, from their health and environment to their time of need, is what they'd call the only way to do business.

The following growers donated at least a pallet of their harvest to this effort: Heath & Lejeune, based in Commerce, Calif.; Nunes (broccoli and celery), based in Salinas, Calif.; Andersen Organics (gold potatoes), based in Othello, Wash.; Tat-On (Russet potatoes), based in Moses Lake, Wash.; Viva Tierra (apples), based in Mount Vernon, Wash.; Corona College Heights Citrus (oranges), based in Riverside, Calif.; Naturipe (strawberries), based in Salinas, Calif.; Dole (pineapple), based in Westlake Village, Calif.; Jim & Deborah Durst (watermelon), based in Esparto, Calif.; Deer Creek (Valencia oranges), based in Porterville, Calif.; Wholesum Harvest (tomatoes, squash and cucumbers), based in  Nogales, Ariz.;  Organically Grown Company (tomatoes, squash and cucumbers), based in Eugene, Ore.; Grimmway Farms (carrots), based in Lamont, Calif.; and AV Thomas Produce (sweet potatoes and yams), based in Atwater, Calif.