From Backyard Fruit Trees to a Community Gleaning Network

Aug 31, 2026

By Syrus Tator, Girl Scout Gold Award Recipient

Syrus is a college freshman from Vallejo who recently completed her Girl Scout Gold Award to revitalize, strengthen and make sustainable gleaning efforts to get food that would otherwise go to waste to people who can use it. The Gold Award is the highest award a Girl Scout can achieve.  Here, she shares about her project.

Syrus (left), and Jesse collect produce at the Vallejo Farmers Market

Last fall, I began working to rebuild the Solano Gleaning Initiative as my Girl Scout Gold Award project. Gleaning is the process of collecting food that would otherwise go unused and getting it to people who can use it. In our case, that means harvesting excess fruit from backyard trees and recovering produce from local farmers markets that might otherwise go to waste.

When I started the project, I knew there were fruit trees throughout Solano County producing more than their owners could possibly use. I also knew there were people in our community who could use that food. My goal was to help connect those two things.

I started by organizing volunteer teams to harvest backyard fruit trees. Homeowners contact us when they have fruit ready to pick, and volunteers come out to harvest it. Homeowners can keep whatever they would like, volunteers are welcome to take produce they can use, and the remaining harvest is donated to Food is Free Bay Area for distribution in the community.

The project grew beyond what I originally expected.

In November, we added weekly produce recovery at the Vallejo Farmers Market. Each Saturday, we bring bins to farmers who expect to have produce left at the end of the market that won’t last until their next market day. We return at the end of the market, collect and weigh the produce, and bring it back for distribution through Food is Free.

Through both backyard harvests and farmers market recovery, the Solano Gleaning Initiative has rescued more than 12,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables in about 10 months.

But the number of pounds rescued isn’t the part of the project I am most proud of.

The most important thing has been building a community around the work. Homeowners have called us back when another tree is ready. Farmers have gotten to know our volunteers and save produce for us. Volunteers who started by coming to one harvest have returned again and again. Our harvests have also given high school students a way to earn community service hours, and Girl Scout troops and other groups have come out to harvest together.

We’ve also developed a partnership with Forstr, another local gleaning organization. Because they primarily harvest in Dixon, Vacaville and surrounding areas, we refer homeowners and harvest opportunities to each other depending on location and volunteer availability. Rather than duplicating efforts, we’re able to help more fruit get harvested throughout the county.

My Gold Award project was never intended to end when I finished my award. We are building the structure that will allow the Solano Gleaning Initiative to continue, including volunteer harvest leads, a farmers market recovery team, and community members who can help guide and support the program.

And we need more people to join us.

There are lots of ways to help. Volunteers can come to an occasional backyard harvest, help collect produce at the Vallejo Farmers Market on Saturdays, lead harvest teams, help with volunteer coordination and outreach, or support the program in other ways. You don’t have to make a huge commitment to make a difference.

One of the things I’ve learned through this project is how much food already exists in our community. Sometimes the challenge isn’t producing more — it’s making sure that the food we already have doesn’t go to waste.

The Solano Gleaning Initiative is one small way our community can make that connection.

Get Involved

Students and groups are welcome! Harvests are a great opportunity for high school students to earn community service hours, and youth groups, Girl Scout troops, service clubs and other community groups can arrange to participate together.

If you have a fruit tree producing more than you can use, please use the link below. Depending on where you live and volunteer availability, Solano Gleaning Initiative or a gleaning partner may be able to help get that fruit harvested and into the community.

Volunteer with the Solano Gleaning Initiative

Fill out this form if you have a fruit tree that needs harvesting

Questions or interested in helping lead the program? Contact gleaning@fifbayarea.org 

The True Cost of Local Food

Aug 28, 2026

By Stephanie Oelsligle Jordan, Local Food Program Manager

Comparison with grocery store prices reveals farm boxes are the better bargain

Back in 2018 or 2019 — before the words “Covid” or “broken food chain” entered our vernacular — I wanted to know how my weekly box of organic produce from a local farm compared to purchasing those same items at the grocery store. (To be honest, part of this exercise was to prove my husband wrong, who thought for sure the farm produce was triple the cost of the grocery store.) When I received my box that week, I weighed my local farm items with my digital kitchen scale, trekked to the store, noted prices per pound on the equivalent organic produce, and did the math. The results were not too dramatic, but I had enough data to prove my point: the farm won the contest, coming in about a dollar cheaper than the grocery store.

Now that we’re in 2026, and prices have undoubtedly risen everywhere, I wanted to run this experiment again. For several years, I’ve been subscribing to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes from two different farms: Terra Firma Farm near Winters, and Eatwell Farm outside of Dixon. Both grow a wide array of organic vegetables and fruit. Because I get what’s growing right now (no picking and choosing), my lunches and dinners have, for the most part, landed squarely into “seasonal” meals.

The process was the same as seven years ago: One August afternoon I got out my digital scale and started weighing produce from my Terra Firma “Medium” box: 1 lb. peaches and nectarines, 2 lbs. 5 oz. heirloom tomatoes, 1 lb. purple grapes, 7 ¾ lbs. personal sized watermelons, 1 ¼ lbs. zucchini, 1 lb. carrots, 9 oz. green beans and 9 oz. gypsy peppers (similar to lunchbox peppers). I also had the opportunity to weigh out my neighbor’s “Large” size Terra Firma box, which had the same as above (except slightly larger quantities of each thing) plus a pound of serpent cucumbers (comparable to an English cucumber). Meanwhile, Eatwell’s box that week had 8 oz. of fresh basil, 1 bunch of swiss chard, 1.6 lbs. of yellow plums, 2 lbs. of nectarines, 2 ½ lbs. of mixed yellow squash and zucchini, a little over 2 lbs. of cucumbers, 2 lbs. gold potatoes, about 1 ¾ lbs. of turnips and 3 heads of garlic.

List in hand, I went to the grocery store, noted prices per pound (or looked them up on their website, if the actual item was not in the store) and plugged it all into a spreadsheet.  Here’s what I found:

FARM CSA BOX COST GROCERY STORE COST
Terra Firma Farm (medium box) $35.50 $42.63
Terra Firma Farm (large box) $46 $63.40
Eatwell Farm (one size box) $32 $57.63

I actually had done this same test a month prior, comparing two different grocery stores with Terra Firma’s box and found similar trends, with one store about 60% more expensive.

This analysis got me thinking about how one could apply several definitions to the “cost” of purchasing local food:

  • the actual dollar value cost
  • the cost of getting what is seasonal and not being able to choose your weekly produce (but I think our bodies probably need what’s growing now!)
  • the convenience (or burden) of driving to the pick up location in my neighborhood each week (although my neighbor and I often share this responsibility)
  • the environmental costs of food miles traveled (or not) and purchasing from farms practicing regenerative (or extractive/industrial) agriculture
  • the cost of time, doing a little research and more cooking at home with produce that may not be as familiar
  • the cost of avoiding cyclospora (sorry, I had to mention it!) because the produce is not caught up in a complex chain of trucking, distributors, warehouses, the grocery store, and (finally) your kitchen

For anyone unfamiliar with how a CSA works, it’s essentially an agreement between you and the farm. You pre-pay a sum (usually around $100-$200, with discounts for higher deposits), and the farm deducts the cost of the box each week as you receive your subscription. When your deposited sum is gone, the farm re-charges your credit card, pulls from Venmo, etc. On the designated day, you pick up your subscription from a centrally located site, take it home and get cooking. This structure helps the farmer, who often has upfront costs like seeds, compost, machinery repair, etc., before the harvest takes place. In exchange, you receive super fresh produce, often picked 24-48 hours before it lands at your local CSA pick-up site.

I understand that subscribing to a CSA box is not for everyone, but if you’re even moderately familiar with seasonal cooking and eating, this might be a great option for healthy eating while supporting the local economy and environment, and saving on your grocery bill. To get you started, check out our library of seasonal recipes and cooking videos!

Making it Meaningful: Marketing Local Food to Gen Z

Aug 28, 2026

By Manpreet Singh, Public Education Coordinator Fellow

Interested in learning more about marketing local food? Join the Solano Local Food System Alliance’s online forum from 4-5:30 pm Sept. 17 to hear what the research says and learn marketing approaches.

Register here

A shining sun, clear blue sky, and a busy quad. Around a table, Solano Community College students sampled peaches from a local farm and a grocery store, voted on which they liked better, and answered questions to help us understand their perspective on local food in Solano County. Additionally, they had the opportunity to learn about local food in Solano County and provide feedback to help raise awareness of products that are locally sourced.

When taste testing the peaches, students identified a significant difference in taste between the peach from the local farmer and the grocery store. There was an overwhelming preference for the peach from the local farm with students believing it tasted much “juicier” and “richer”, was “softer” and “sweeter”, and they could “taste the love”. This event provided meaningful insight into what attracts these students and other members of Gen Z to local food.

SuSol Local Food Program Manager Stephanie Oelsligle Jordan cut fresh samples of farm and store-bought peaches on demand for SCC students to taste test

Solano County is rooted in agriculture with over 700 farms growing produce such as almonds, walnuts, and tomatoes. Many of these farms produce large quantities of these products for national and international markets, with little remaining in the county. Solano is also home to a number of smaller family-run farms that are trying to serve the local market, as well as farms in the broader region that can offer fresh, seasonal products to local buyers. Past research has shown an established need to build awareness of the importance of locally grown food and the local food system to build the demand needed to support those farms and shift from an unsustainable system to one that is better for the environment and people’s health.

Gen Z — individuals born between 1997 to 2012 — is joining the active global workforce and wield significant purchasing power that can  shape global food systems and future food markets. This generation has grown up experiencing the extreme impacts of climate change and is the first digital generation — getting their information primarily from social media and online news outlets. Solano County has a growing Gen Z population that can play a significant role in growing our local food system and strengthen our communities.

Gen Z values sustainability, quality, and transparency and are one of the key groups that are on the frontline of advancing climate action and demand for sustainable practices. Through the power of social media, they have been exposed to videos about chemicals and additives added to their food and harmful practices in the supply chain from unsustainable agriculture practices to animal and human rights abuses. This has shaped desire and demand for more environmentally friendly sourced food, product integrity, and transparency about where food is coming from and what is in it. With Gen Z, there is a shift towards a moralized market. It’s not only about economic exchange, it is relational and ideological exchange around how food is produced in a way that aligns with their personal values.

Promoting locally grown food is a critical opportunity to shape the future of the food system and advance environmental, social, and economic sustainability benefits. This includes:

  • Reduced food miles: fewer emissions are released as vehicles travel shorter distances.
  • Health and taste: locally grown crops are often picked at peak ripeness, which means more nutritional value and taste is retained as nutrients and flavor are not lost during long distance transport.
  • Less risk of contamination: fewer steps between the farm and consumers and more transparency on where the crops are sourced from and practices used to grow them
  • Local economy: creates jobs and keeps money in the local community
  • Resilient food supply: communities are more resilient to challenges in the global food supply and price fluctuations.
  • Environment and biodiversity: smaller farms often use regenerative, organic, or sustainable practices that are beneficial to soil quality, open spaces in the community, and protect biodiversity of our region.
  • Community: Trust and community bonds strengthen by connecting consumers directly to the individuals who grow their food

Opportunities exist to engage Gen Z in boosting local food systems that build long-term community health, support regional economies, create a sense of community and belonging, and ensure sustainable food systems — especially in the face of growing threats to our food supply. According to a 2025 survey, 72% of Gen Z consumers reported feeling strongly about buying locally grown produce when available, but only 45% reported actually buying more local produce. This highlights that there is already interest, but accessibility may be an issue.The interest for local produce was echoed with Solano Community College students indicating overwhelming interest in advocating for the local farmers’ peaches to be served in their cafeteria and an interest in traveling to the local farm to purchase these fruits.

Local food messaging is a critical method that connects consumers to products. For Gen Z, local food messaging needs  to connect with their values. At Solano Community College, we tested 4 local food marketing messages:

  • If you try it, you’ll buy it!
  • Taste the difference!
  • One bite changes everything!
  • Taste local! Love local! 

Of these 4 messages, the one that resonated the most with students was “Taste local! Love local!”. When asked why, students emphasized the inclusion of the word “local” because it resonated with their desires and values to support their local community.

Messaging helps promote locally sourced food by communicating the product’s value and building consumer interest. Based on insights from the Solano Community College taste test, messaging should not only emphasize the environmental, economic, and health benefits of purchasing locally sourced food but also reflect the local and community aspect. Emphasizing that product came from the local community, along with all the benefits, ensures that the product resonates with their values while helping Gen Z consumers understand the benefits of their actions when they purchase locally sourced food.

A critical method to reach Gen Z is through using social media. This group is the first digital generation, as they have been deeply shaped by the rise and constant presence of online digital connections and utilize social media for access to information, the newest trends, and connections. Social media plays a significant role in shaping their consumer behavior by exposing them to the newest trends via influencers and videos about what is happening in different areas. 

Another method to reach Gen Z is to build and strengthen those community connections. This means being a constant presence at locations such as farmers markets or community events. Local farmers can hear from Gen Z what they want and build trust and community connections that can have a far reaching impact on the local food system. 

Food has the power to bring the people together, and in a region like Solano County where community is emphasized, supporting locally grown food can make us stronger. 

You know what they say: “Taste local! Love local!

Community Voices Help Shape Solano County Air Quality Summit

Jul 30, 2026

By Willa Gruver, Resilient Communities Program Manager

SuSol Program Manager Willa Gruver explores CalEnviroScreen maps with Vallejo community members

On a Wednesday evening in June, Vallejo community members gathered at the Joseph Room in the JFK Library to share their experiences and concerns about air quality — something that has a huge impact on our bodies and long-term health, but that we don’t often think about or notice.

The meeting was part of Sustainable Solano’s effort to build community capacity to tackle air quality issues as a county through education, listening sessions, youth programs, community-based green infrastructure projects, and coalition building. The event gathered community feedback to shape a countywide Air Quality Summit, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 17 in Suisun City. Shaped through the efforts of an advisory committee and community meetings like this one, the Air Quality Summit will bring together experts, policymakers, and community members for interactive sessions and workshops that will build shared understanding of air quality issues across the county, provide practical tools and resources, facilitate connections and community-building, and connect interested residents with ways to get involved.

Over pizza, we explored maps from CalEnviroScreen 5.0, a free online mapping tool developed by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) that anyone can use. It combines public health, demographic and environmental data and can be used to see which communities are the most disproportionately burdened by pollution.

This map shows the estimated number of ER visits for asthma by census tract from 2022–2023.
The darkest green area of Vallejo ranks in the 99th percentile statewide, meaning that asthma-related emergency room visits are higher than in 99% of other California census tracts. Because air pollution can trigger asthma attacks, this data helps illustrate one of the many health impacts associated with poor air quality.

As we reviewed the maps, I asked participants whether the data reflected their lived experiences in Vallejo. I also wanted to hear which pollution sources concerned them most and what topics would be most valuable to cover at the Solano County Air Quality Summit in October. Participants raised concerns about historical cleanup sites, new development that could increase traffic and further burden nearby neighborhoods, and proposed industrial manufacturing activity on Mare Island. The conversation generated a long list of ideas, resources, and priorities that will help shape the event. 

We’d love to see you at the Solano County Air Quality Summit. You can learn more, stay updated on programming and register for the event here. To let us know what you’d like to see or learn about at the Summit and share what air quality issues you notice in your community, please take our survey! Your feedback will help shape our work in Solano County.

The Solano County Air Quality Summit is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that puts billions of Cap-and-Invest, formerly known as Cap-and-Trade, dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment — particularly in disadvantaged communities.

On Relationship with the Natural World

Jul 1, 2026

By Manpreet Singh, Public Education Coordinator Fellow

“Inspiring.” That was the most frequent word from participants who joined Sustainable Solano’s 10th annual Benicia & Vallejo Demonstration Food Forest Garden Tour. Having the opportunity to see how lively and full each garden was, I found it no surprise that participants took inspiration from these sites and each gardener’s stories. The creation of Enchanted Cottage Garden, for example, was a family affair with each member actively involved from setting the foundation to naming the garden. Hearing from landscape architects and homeowners at the Habitat and Harvest Garden provided insights into how the garden was created; interacting with docents and land stewards at Yggdrasil Garden provided real-life examples of permaculture and pollinator havens. 

With 16 locations scattered across both cities, participants met with passionate local gardeners and explored real life examples of flourishing food forests, community gardens, and native plant gardens that nourish humans, pollinators, and the Earth. Additionally, participants learned about permaculture, native planting, and water conservation, providing them with practical knowledge that can help them transform their own gardens and the way they interact with the environment. The annual Garden Tour provides real life examples of how humans and land can coexist and take care of each other. 

Sustainable Solano is actively looking for a site in Vallejo to do a front lawn conversion into a demonstration food forest.

Learn more here

Habitat & Harvest, a California Native Plant Society garden on this year’s tour

Our relationship with the land is important because we depend on it for life-sustaining resources such as food and shelter, and it forms the foundation of our identity through influencing history, culture and traditions. Humanity and land are intertwined in a loop where our activities and interaction influence what the land will share with us and can alter earth systems that shape our climate and how society itself functions. Humans and land are connected and interdependent with each other, and we need to work towards a regenerative relationship with the land that helps us protect and sustain it for future generations. 

Throughout human history, humans have reshaped the environment to sustain themselves. This is often done through two pathways: exploitative and regenerative. The exploitative pathway is the most prevalent in which natural resources are extracted through unsustainable methods that remove green spaces and degrade soil quality. Action such as deforestation, large scale monocultures, intensive tilling, and pesticide use can negatively impact soil nutrients, lead to a loss biodiversity, contaminate water, harm production of fresh produce, and lower the capacity of Earth to absorb carbon dioxide, thus accelerating global warming, impacting air quality, and exacerbating weather events linked to climate change. Exploiting land is unsustainable and can significantly reduce what we leave for future generations.

The alternative and more sustainable method is the regenerative pathway where humans partner with the natural land and its cycles and take actions that heal the environment. This can include supporting healthy soil to sequester carbon, increase water retention and boost soil life; using elements of companion planting where plants support one another and the wider ecosystem, such as attraction of pollinators and protection from pests; and composting to reduce waste and methane pollution. These types of actions were on display during the Garden Tour, showing how people are taking care of the land and in turn the land provides us with fresh fruits and vegetables, serves as a home for us and other animals, and further carries our history into the future.

The regenerative pathway is often practiced through environmental stewardship where actions by individuals or groups are taken to protect, responsibly use, and care for the environment. These actions can happen at any scale and can include creating community gardens, replanting trees, using native plants, limiting harvest, or purchasing more sustainable products. Indigenous communities are the greatest examples of environmental stewards with a “kincentric worldview” in which people are part of and share a genealogical connection with nature. These communities view the natural world (land and sea) as being alive and that caring for the world is a reciprocal relationship where the natural world is both a caregiver and care-receiver — echoing the intertwined relationship between human and land.

Yggdrasil Garden in Benicia
Loma Vista Farm in Vallejo

As climate change worsens and impacts all living things, the need to promote improved human-environment interactions through stewardship is ever pressing. During the Garden Tour, there were many examples of environmental stewardship. One key example is the practice of permaculture in which we design our life and environment around processes and systems found in nature to create ecologically and socially sustainable ways of living. Permaculture reflects the key principle that all elements found in nature are connected on many scales. For example, native plants draw in pollinators (e.g., butterflies, bees) who help nourish the plants that provide us with shade and fresh produce, and in turn the plants provide nutrition and nesting sites that help the pollinators survive and reproduce. Yggdrasil Garden and Loma Vista Farm are real life examples of permaculture that embrace the 3 ethics of permaculture — Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. These guide us in how we can live regeneratively while protecting the planet and meeting current and future generational needs in an equitable manner to protect resources.

The relationship between humans and land is critical and deeply interwoven as the land forms the basis of who we were, are, and will be. As we continue to shape the natural world, becoming environmental stewards and taking actions through sustainable landscaping and creating food forests are vital in creating a resilient, regenerative interdependent relationship where we take care of the land and the land continues to take care of us as future generations grow.

This piece recognizes that Solano County has been home of the Suisune, the Patwin of the Wintun tribes, Miwuk, Karkin Ohlone, Yoche Dehe, and the countless other California tribes who have remained committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries. As we continue shaping our environment, we are reminded to honor and look to the relationship indigenous communities have maintained with the natural world since time immemorial. We encourage those of you reading this blog to learn more about the Native tribes where you live and seek active ways to acknowledge and give back.