I would like to start this blog post by issuing a heartfelt apology to all my volunteers that went out today. You guys are troopers and I really don't deserve you.
Now for context, I have, once again, gone out of state for the IOWA Young Writers Workshop, but I decided I might as well put out a Nextdoor Neighbor post anyway to clean up any stragglers while we're coming to the end of the plum season. At least, what I thought was coming to the end of the plum season.
...
Yeah. So, I was wrong.
As you can see, the post veritably blew up: 192 reactions, 46 comments, even more people contacting me with friends and family who were interested in becoming donors...
Now, don't get me wrong, I am absolutely delighted that there has been such an amazing response to my post. I could not be happier, in fact, but my. Poor. Pickers.
Managing all of this remotely—communications, donors, volunteers, transport—was, to be blunt, a logistical nightmare. I was woefully underprepared and rapidly lost track of what I had said to who, which house had what kind of fruit, when they would be free for volunteers to go out and pick. But I am going to ride this learning curve if it's the last thing I do. And to show you how many offers I got in the span of two days:
This map may appear organized now with the color-coded pins for each individual to Picking Trip and the notes (that you can't see) that lists the name of the donor and type of fruit, but this is the love child of my 3 AM, coffee-fueled scrambling through Nextdoor Neighbor DMs, texts, and email chains. But I managed, and now I have a system that I am very invested in.
But then arises the issue of actually going out and picking. Today was attempt one, and it was... an attempt. I overestimated how difficult plums are to pick—more so than any other fruit because they're so small and fall off the tree at the slightest disturbance, as many plum tree owners most likely know—and decided it wouldn't be too difficult to hit SIX HOUSES IN IN ONE DAY.
My volunteers are angels, I'm serious. I don't know how they put up with me. I mean, even after I put them through all of that—they were picking the entire day. But, they're such troopers, we ended up with 212 lbs of fruit at the end of the day, all of which were donated to the SF-Marin Food Bank. And that's only six houses down out of the... yeah I'm not counting how many are left, sorry, that's just going to scare me.
So from now on, I will make a rule: no more than 3 houses per day, if only for the sake of my volunteers. This learning curve is mine.
Anyway, all jokes aside, I want to thank all the Donors who volunteered their trees and allowed us to do this in the first place! The response to my post as been completely insane—even more so than last year! I'm really excited to see how Fruits of Labor grows throughout this summer! We're able to make a huge difference in so many people's lives because of you all!
All the love,
Carrie
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