On August 6th, 2022, Greater Temecula Valley AYLUS (GTVA) members Ally Negulescu (3.5 hrs), Adora Xiao (3 hrs), Julie Lu (3hrs), and Jessica Lu (3 hrs) volunteered once again at their local farm to help harvest, package, and smell produce. All of the produce grown from this project is donated directly to the Temecula Community Mission of Hope for distribution to other local food pantries in our region and Fallbrook, which is pretty cool.
Waking up at 8:00 am on a Saturday morning is already hard enough, but to spend the next few hours harvesting produce and helping the community out in the hot sun and sweaty dirt is a whole new level. That’s the members of the GTVA AYLUS, some of the best out there! Today, members arrived bright and early and started distributing their jobs. Since the season is gradually coming to a close, options for the members also started decreasing slightly. Today’s target happened to be the watermelon, so members (who were tired and still half asleep) set off to harvest the watermelon. A very sophisticated chain of people was formed, passing watermelon by watermelon onto each person to be loaded onto a tractor to take into the packing area. People started throwing watermelons at each other instead of passing in an attempt to quicken the pace, but that didn’t really end well since they were much heavier than expected and splattered all over the floor. But everything has a bright side, as members (well, more like 1) hungrily huddled around the broken watermelon and took a quick bite. As everything was loaded onto the tractor and being hauled up to packaging, Ally once again snuck a ride on the tractor to prevent walking. Work smarter, not harder, right?
When all produce was mostly harvested for the day, bagging and boxing once again began. It took less effort than expected, but it’s most likely because of the familiarity members have of the process. More boxes were made as well as grab and give bags, which, as the name suggests, is a simple bag of wholesome produce that you can simply grab and get along with your day. With all the hard work and sweat settled in, members finally started winding down and clocked out for the day. Another morning of hard work was finished, and after another week or rest, members will be back and up on their feet for the next time!
Edited and written by Ally Negulescu.
