Backyard Bounty Program

Meet the Grocery Rescue Program 🚚👋

Each morning, dedicated Foodbank staff and volunteers visit grocery stores throughout the county to reroute surplus food away the landfill and into the hands of community members experiencing food insecurity. ♻️

Millions of tons of fresh, nutritious food are wasted each year due to appearance, size, freshness, or surplus. Over 50% of what we dump into California’s landfills is organic waste, releasing potent greenhouse gasses that advance climate breakdown.

By rescuing over 2 million pounds of food each year, our Grocery Rescue Volunteers:
🍊 Reduce food waste
🌏 Lower greenhouse gas emissions
🤝 Ensure our community has access to nutritious food

You can team up with Foodbank staff and fellow volunteers to support our mission to combat hunger and protect the planet! Fill out the Interest Form in our bio to learn more about becoming a Grocery Rescue Volunteer.🌱

Our April Backyard Bounty gleans have been full of sunshine, smiles, and 4,545 lbs of citrus! Huge shoutout to all the amazing volunteers who have showed up and made it happen—tackling thorny lemon trees and steep orchard paths to bring a little extra nourishment to their neighbors’ plates this month. That’s community in action. 🧡

What better way to kick off Spring than with a week of lemon gleans! Our amazing crew of volunteers worked together to harvest 4,871 lbs of locally grown lemons to share with our community last week, all while enjoying some time in the sunshine and making new connections. 👏🌸🍋

Join the Backyard Bounty team this Thursday, March 27th to harvest mandarins from a large orchard in Goleta! Click on the link in our bio to register. 🌱