Elk Grove Community Harvesters

Welcome to the Elk Grove Community Harvesters group!  This group started organically several years ago when some friends reached out to me and said they had extra apples on their apple trees and did I  know of anyone who could use them?  Of course I did!  The food bank can ALWAYS use extra produce!  

The Elk Grove Food Bank is one of the brightest lights in our community with the loveliest group of staff and volunteers that you’ll ever meet!  In the past 5+ years the food bank has greatly increased the services offered to our community and they need all the support they can get!  
So I made a few phone calls to some friends, grabbed some gloves and boxes and we went out and harvested apples for the food bank. That experience ignited a spark within our group as we found such joy in harvesting food for our neighbors in need.  We were helping feed people and growing community all at the same time! Over the years our group and our harvesting adventures have grown!  We’ve harvested everything from apples to pumpkins to sweet corn and more!  In 2025 alone, 2,485lbs of produce was harvested by more helping hands than I could count!  Food for our community that would otherwise have gone to waste.

My favorite harvest was a few years back from a friend of a friend whose husband had recently passed away.  The mandarin tree was her husbands and she hated seeing the fruit drop to the ground, but she didn’t know what to do. She reached out to our group and trusted us to come in and carefully harvest from her husband’s precious tree.  What an honor for our group! Through her grief, she offered hope to her neighbors in need.

This group has brought my heart more joy than I could ever express.  Neighbors helping neighbors in the most nutritious way.  If you would like to join us on one of our harvesting adventures sometime OR if you know of someone with an excess harvest that would like to share, please reach out at DeeplyRootedKitchen@gmail.com. I firmly believe we are created for community; we need each other and we shine brightest when we share.