One Bag, A Watermelon and A Squish

OK sorry, a Squash but that's what we've started calling it here at work today.

Today was fruits and veggie day at the Social Services Center and Second Harvest donates a bunch of produce to us in the morning. We don't even know what we're getting but as soon as it's delivered, we have to divide it up into big brown bags for 130-150 people and then give them away to everyone who comes to get some.

It was my first fruit and veggie day at the corps so this was definitely a new experience for me. I was thoroughly overwhelmed at the number of people who showed up and equally overwhelmed at how many cabbages were rotten.

You see, today we recieved cabbages, potatoes, carrots, onions, watermelon, and spaghetti squash. Everything was great except the cabbages and that there were some rotting squash at the bottom of the big crate that it was squished - hence squish. A slimy mess I tell ya.

The cabbages were on a whole ok, but still covered in tonnes of dirt and some were rotten to the core. Another woman who was volunteering (Myrtle) and I took one look and decided that we could not give away cabbages that looked like they were left on the side of the road to rot. So we started peeling off the bad leaves and chucking the ones that were beyond saving. 2 hours later I can truly say that I hope to never see another cabbage for at least a week.

We are handing out food for the hungry and needy yes. But does that mean they should be recieving expired and rotten food? I know a friend of mine, Rochelle, who is currently living in Zimbabwe with her husband has seen the same thing happen and written the same. It's a fine line but I just think that it would be nice for these people not to get something that looks like another person's scraps.

On the flip side, it turns out that many people, even though they are very hungry, really don't like squash so we ended up with tonnes of it. Now what are we ever to do with a crate full of squash?