First Harvest 1/17/09

Being Guinea Pigs for their crazy neighbor Rick’s idea, joining in on the gleaning and knowing Jan 17th is the magical day for us, Ava and Heather are always there to welcome us and pitch in.  Just watching Ava grow to nearly double her size – but more so, seeing her understand and now appreciate the the importance of this work is reward enough to keep coming back – the 16 cases of fruit (with some from a neighbor’s trees from 3 doors up who has recently joined our program) is irresistible.

Third Anniversary Harvest with Ava 1/17/12

In the time since we began the program  in early 2009, with no name, no agenda and just these two trees, we have grown into a professional operation – actually So Cal’s largest – that helps food pantries and other agencies feed our most vulnerable with gleaned/rescued produce. Soberingly – the numbers of food insecure (people who are not sure where their next meal is coming from) has also ballooned since 2009 to 50 million across the country. Staggering, angering and yes, vastly actionable. I’ll go to my grave convinced hunger in America is a solvable issue. Solvable not by growing more food – but simply by DISTRIBUTING it more thoughtfully, equitably and with a keener understanding that our nation wastes over 40% of the edible food we grow/cook/manufacture. Yes, you read that right – 40%!

Yesterday’s pick came on the heels of our 3rd annual Fruitstock weekend in Santa Barbara where over 40 LA volunteers drove 90 minutes north to help glean over 15,000 lbs that were shared by the SB Foodbank, Oxnard Foodshare and MEND.  Two days of kick-ass mandarin madness on two gorgeous properties with our SB Backyard Bounty pals were separated by a potluck with new and old friends, board members, staff and donors.  Again, an honor to lead it, but even more fun just to be a part of it.

As I wait here in the Fruit Cave for SOVA to pick up those 16 cases of navels from yesterday, which no doubt will flow in and out of their efficient pantry door in 24-48 hours, there is some satisfaction knowing that we may not be conquering hunger at Food Forward but we are fighting it and bringing our community closer with every harvest we undertake.

From 85lbs of tangerines delivered to SOVA on Jan. 17th, 2009, we closed out year three yesterday with over 686,000 lbs (or nearly 2.75 million servings) donated to over 25 agencies in LA, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties of all shapes and sizes.

2012 holds amazing promise – new programs, strengthening of the Ventura Branch, social enterprise, new interns, new partnerships, a new board chair (the incredible Pam Kaizer) and more – and along with it more challenges. All that to say, every time you drive by a fully loaded orange or grapefruit tree, I hope you will want to rise to the occasion, strap on a harvest bag and go pick?!

Thanks for all the love, support and Fruitanthropy – and here’s to the next three years of sharing the abundance across Fruitland.

Every month we picked and transported citrus to our local food pantries in and around Ventura County totaling nearly 50,000 lbs! The number of recipient agencies grew as did our wonderful volunteer base. Property owners throughout our county stepped forward and graciously allowed us to pick their trees clean! We’ve partnered with and picked oranges at the International Paper site in Camarillo and Toll Brothers in Moorpark. Their employees rallied and contributed to our hugely successful picks. With Bob and Ryan and 2 pick up trucks, what began as literally a grassroots effort, volunteers now look forward to picking citrus with us in Ventura County every month.

Culminating the year, I was honored and humbled to be selected as Food Forward’s “Super Volunteer” being nominated and then winning the prestigious HALO Award presented by the Deutsch Foundation. Food Forward is the youngest organization to win this award and share this recognition with 4 other winners including Habitat for Humanity.

Thank you to everyone who came out and supported Food Forward last year.

2012 carries great promise and expectation for FF VC. Our goal is to double our picks and bring even more nutritional food to our county’s most vulnerable.

Start your new years off with a resolution you can keep: become a pick leader or property scout! It’s easy, fun and very gratifying.

Email me at martha@foodforward.org if you want to get involved in Ventura County.

All the best to you and I hope I see you up a tree this year!

Martha Penhall

Ventura County Coordinator

Food Forward

It’s that time of year Fruit-lovers!
Yes, it’s FRUITSTOCK weekend in Santa Barbara! YAY!

To honor our last picking weekend in our fiscal fruit year, we are having our Two-Day-Fruitstock-Extravaganza!!

Join us on this fun adventure and celebration where we will pick hundreds of mandarin trees on two beautiful rolling estates.  After our AM pick on Saturday Jan. 14^th, we will have a glorious potluck BBQ.  We will supply lunch on both days and encourage you to bring your friends and family to join our Food Forward Family!  Plus, you’ll be in the gorgeous county of Santa Barbara, so there will be plenty of scenic places to visit.

Sign up to volunteer on our events page TODAY for either one day or both days!

Date: Saturday January 14^th and Sunday January 15^th
Time: 9:30am to 2:30pm.
Location: Goleta, Ca
Ages 10+ welcomed.

ORGANIZATION: Food Forward (501c3 non-profit), www.foodforward.org

HOURS: 20 hours per week M, W, F from 10 – 5pm at our North Hollywood office.

DATES: January 15th, 2012- December 15th, 2012

COMPENSATION: This position is currently unpaid.

ORGANIZATION OVERVIEW:
Food Forward’s mission is to reconnect people with people – through food – by bringing together volunteers and neighbors to share in the gleaning and distributing of locally grown food from private homes and public spaces which is then distributed to local food pantries and organizations serving those in need. Since forming in 2009, Food Forward has rescued over 640,000 pounds of produce from over 325 local backyards and orchards.

Food Forward is growing by leaps and bounds and is at an exciting point in it’s development. To keep up with the increasing opportunities and demands coming to our organization, we are looking for an individual who will assist the core Food Forward team with administrative and programmatic needs!

We seek someone who is looking for a dynamic experience that will provide a highly valuable work experience in a fast, mission-driven, non profit setting. This position will provide professional experience assisting in the development, planning, and execution of vital programs at Food Forward. The position provides intimate exposure to working with several of Food Forward’s partnership agencies as well. We seek an applicant who is excited to become better familiarized with the Food Justice community of Los Angeles.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES:
The Admin/Program assistant will work directly with the Managing Director, Volunteer Coordinator, and the Harvest Coordinator on various projects and tasks pertaining to Food Forward’s daily operations and programing. The Admin/Prog Assistant will work closely with the core team on following:

Volunteer Coordinator
- Support the volunteer in community outreach and community development efforts to grow volunteer base in LA region and Ventura County.
- Maintain an organized volunteer database
- Maintain strong organizational relationships with super volunteers (pick leaders, property scouts, and neighborhood captains).
- Help with administrative needs to maintain and develop Food Forward Community Chapters.
- Help to ensure that the logistics of each pick is organized and coordinated.
- Make site visits to community organizations, institutions, and events to pitch Food Forward’s mission and encourage involvement.

Harvest Coordinator
- Assist the Harvest Coordinator in maintaining the database of properties and coordinating the scouting of trees in LA and Ventura Counties.
- Manage the “FruitLine”, Food Forward’s telephone messaging service.
- Provide support for the development of the “I Pick It” model
- Conduct research on potential properties for larger picks as well as private picks.
- Help coordinate property scouting with available property scouts.
- Manage Vehicle Maintenance on Food Forward vehicles.

Managing Director
- Assist in the development and implementation of the Farmer’s Market Recovery Program
- Assistance with CAN IT! Program – FF’s food preservation fundraising program.
- Manage inventory and status of merchandise (Create a system that works for Food Forward and clients selling Products).

*This role also requires the Admin/Program Assistant to become a Pick Leader and a Property Scout. This person will be required to lead at least 1 fruit pick monthly and scout 1 property monthly.

QUALIFICATIONS:
Ideally, candidate will have a strong interest in hunger and food justice issues. We are looking for an extremely detail-oriented person who enjoys organizing and collecting data and who can work efficiently and comfortably on a website to manage information. Candidate should be personable and able follow up with property owners of various personalities and temperaments. Candidate must have a strong interest in local fruit tree varietals and fruit tree care. Candidate should be well versed in Los Angeles and SFV geography.

Other qualifications include:
- Bachelors Degree in a related field
- Strong knowledge and comfort with WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, & other social media
- Experience in food justice work desired
- Proven effective data management skills
- Strong people and public speaking skills
- Flexible and able to work well under pressure
- Experience working in a fast paced environment, start up or non-profit desired
- A valid drivers license and ability to easily navigate the SFV
- Willingness to work some weekends
- Bilingual in English and Spanish is preferred
- Must have a reliable form a transportation

If you are interested in this position, please email your most current resume and a 100-150 word letter explaining why you want to work for Food Forward and what excites you most about our mission. Please send your resume and letter of interest in PDF format (one PDF File, please) to Max@foodforward.org.

Hello Fruit Loops!

As we head further into the holidays, we are doing everything we can to prepare for a superb 2012! We hope you can squeeze in 5 minutes of your time to answer some questions on our Volunteer Survey. Your answers will help guide us as we plan for the best possible year ahead!

Please click here : Food Forward’s Volunteer Survey

We truly appreciate your time and input! We wish everyone a fruitastic Holiday Season!

Cheers,

Food Forward Team

Now you can sample the flavors of every season!

Food Forward Gift Crates are on sale now for the holiday season and filled with delicious preserves and beautiful Food Forward merchandise. Through our CAN IT! program, we have created preserves from each season – Gingered Meyer Lemon Marmalade (Spring), Tomato Sauce with Garlic and Candied Lemon Peels (Summer), Caramel Apple Jam and Paradise Jelly (Autumn) – and included them in our Holiday Gift Crate.  Additionally you’ll find a Food Forward t-shirt (choose between a “Pick Me” women’s shirt or “Harvest This” men’s baseball jersey shirt), Food Forward Ironclad Garden/Work gloves, and a Food Forward apron.

These Gift Crates make a perfect gift for that foodie in your life OR give it to someone who’d rather you make a charitable donation on their behalf. All money raised from the sale of our gift crates goes directly back to the organization to help us buy more tools and harvest more food for LA’s hungry. When you purchase a Food Forward Gift Crate you are doing the following:

1) Supporting a local organization and investing in locally made products.

2) Supporting a non-profit that feeds our community.

3) Guaranteeing a unique and tasteful gift that any foodie or Food Forward supporter will be excited to receive.

4) Marking one more thing off that long holiday gift list.

Its a win x 4!

Gift Crates cost $100 and $125 with delivery in the US. 

To place your order, please email meg(at)foodforward(dot)org.

Share the Abundance and Happy Holidays!

Cover Story
October 12, 2011
Food Forward, gleaning the neighborhoods
BY RYAN TOROK
On a recent weekend morning, sunlight lit up a band of eager workers in jeans and T-shirts who had ventured into a backyard at a home in Northridge. They were there to pick oranges.
No, these were not the usual laborers who toil daily in the region’s orchards. These were San Fernando Valley suburbanites willing to volunteer a few hours of hard work gleaning the ripe fruit of heavily laden trees so that it could be transported to food banks. While some of the workers set up ladders and then climbed up to begin picking, others used long wooden rods attached to baskets to gather the bright orbs, dropping the bounty into cardboard boxes or stuffing it into canvas bags slung across their bodies.
All of the volunteers came on behalf of Food Forward, a local nonprofit that Southern California homeowners can call to get their trees harvested for free, with the provision that all the fruit is then donated by Food Forward to hunger relief organizations. It’s a win-win proposition.
On this October morning, it took 10 volunteers just two hours to pick approximately 1,200 pounds of oranges from four trees — and that’s a small pick.
Since Food Forward got its start in early 2009, its troops have harvested approximately 575,000 pounds of fruit from more than 300 sites.
That’s “2.3 million servings of fruit,” Rick Nahmias, the organization’s founder and executive director, said proudly. “And of course every week that goes up.”
Food Forward donates nearly 100 percent of the fruit to more than 20 food pantries and agencies throughout Los Angeles and Ventura counties, the first of which was SOVA.
Currently, the group organizes about 15 to 20 picks each month — most often in Northridge, Granada Hills, Chatsworth, Reseda and other areas of the San Fernando Valley. Before the region was developed into today’s suburban sprawl, it was nearly all orchards, and thousands of fruit trees in residents’ yards still yield an overabundance of citrus year round, thanks to the warm climate.
In this harvest season of Sukkot, Food Forward’s generous yet utilitarian mission seems more relevant than ever. Calling itself a “gleaning” organization, it recalls the Bible’s instructions to farmers to leave the corners of their fields unharvested, so that the food might be picked by the less fortunate.
There are two sets of volunteer/donors in the Food Forward equation: the property owners and the pickers. If a property owner has a fruit tree and can’t consume all the fruit that the tree bears, he can go onto the Food Forward Web site and register a tree. Food Forward responds within 48 to 72 hours, providing a volunteer visit to determine whether the fruit is ripe enough for picking. If it is, Food Forward sets up a date and time for a team to come for the harvesting.
Picks usually take place on weekend mornings, or in the evenings during the week. After the work is done, a Food Forward leader will drive the harvested fruit to the pantry or pantries, or those agencies will send their drivers to pick it up.
In late September, Van Nuys resident Kelly Lichter donated the fruit of her orange tree for a weekday evening pick.
“It was very important for me to donate,” Lichter said. “I don’t like to waste things.”
Founder Nahmias, 46, grew up in Los Angeles, and, after graduating from New York University with a double major in film and religious studies, he worked as a researcher and writer for Arianna Huffington. While working for Huffington, he read Eric Schlosser’s book “Fast Food Nation,” which reminded him of the documentary “Harvest of Shame,” which he had seen while in college. The film focuses on the plight of agricultural workers and sparked Nahmias’ interest in food justice, particularly migrant workers.
Meanwhile, Nahmias had written a screenplay that garnered some notice in the industry, and his path to a film career seemed all but destined, even as he also interned for director Mike Nichols, famous for films such as “The Graduate” and “Charlie Wilson’s War.”
However, when he took a cooking class in Napa, Calif., he began thinking about where food comes from and started cooking more thoughtfully, leaving his job with Huffington and enrolling in the Epicurean School of Culinary Arts in West Hollywood.
While in cooking school, he also took photographs of California’s migrant laborers, traveling from Calexico to Sacramento to document their struggles.
Between 2002 and 2008, Nahmias built his own freelance photography company, shooting marketing materials for Cedars-Sinai, American Cancer Society and other organizations. He also made another art-and-advocacy series of photographs, “Golden Gates of Grace: Prayers of the Disinherited,” exploring the religious practices of the marginalized; the work is currently on view at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, in downtown Los Angeles.
The idea for Food Forward came to Nahmias in January 2009 as he was walking his dog around his neighborhood in Valley Glen, on a route he’d traveled countless times before. At this point, however, as his dog was aging, the walks were getting slower.
“I started looking up and saw things I never saw before,” he said, counting them off — tangerine trees, walnuts, pomegranates — and suddenly he “realized how much of that is just going to the squirrels.”
Troubled by the waste, he called a friend who lived nearby and owned a tangerine tree. He asked her if he could harvest the fruit off her tree — she readily agreed — but before starting, he did a quick Google search for the nearest food pantry.

Food Forward volunteers, with the organization’s managing director Meg Glasser, front row, left.
It turned out that the closest one was SOVA, in Van Nuys. So Nahmias posted an ad on Craigslist, inviting volunteers to help him harvest his friend’s tree. Of the four who responded, one showed up. Together, they harvested 85 pounds of tangerines and gave it all to SOVA.
Nahmias continued harvesting in his neighborhood, each time dropping off the bounty, usually about 100 pounds, to SOVA. Then came a breakthrough: In February, Fred Summers, director of operations at SOVA, received a phone call from a property owner in Chatsworth who had a three-acre orchard with 300 orange trees and was looking for a way to donate the fruit to SOVA.
“It was extremely fortuitous,” Nahmias said, “and Fred made that connection” between the Chatsworth property owner and Nahmias’ recent harvesting efforts.
“Fred and I saw that property together — we were a little intimidated by the scale of the property,” Nahmias said. “We’re talking 300 trees, not all of them in great shape, but, still, 300 trees.” There was at this point no formal organization called Food Forward, just informal efforts on an irregular basis.
“But, we said, ‘Let’s go for it,’ ” Nahmias remembers.
The job required more than 50 volunteers, far more than what Nahmias had been able to pull together up until that point. Calling upon the Slow Food network — whose membership is committed to supporting good food — and Craigslist, and by posting fliers at Starbucks, they came up with enough people who wanted to help.
Nahmias’ first “big pick” — as he calls it — took place in March 2009.
“It yielded not only 6,000 pounds, but our first core of serious volunteers,” he said.
One of them was Erica Kenner, who would later become one of the organization’s six board members and a driving force behind the success of Food Forward. Working as a full-time volunteer, Kenner has forged relationships with property owners throughout the Los Angeles area.
She has a “very high and well-deserved reputation” in the food justice community, said Gary Oppenheimer, founder and executive director of AmpleHarvest.org, a New Jersey-based resource for gardeners who have excess produce and want to find pantries in need across the country.
A month after that first monumental pick, Nahmias’ organization was finally christened Food Forward, although it did not receive its own official 501(c)(3) nonprofit status until about two months ago; up until then, it was sponsored by the Los Angeles Community Garden Council.
The recipient base expanded in June 2009. After meeting with Richard Weinroth, president and CEO of MEND (Meet Each Need with Dignity), which has a food bank kitchen in Pacoima and was founded by Catholic and Protestant church members, Food Forward started donating to them, as well.
“I think they have become one of our biggest donors,” Weinroth said. “I want to say they’ve given us well over 100,000 pounds since our inception.”
Given the cutbacks facing agencies like SOVA, Food Forward arrived on the scene at an opportune time.
“It’s a vast untapped natural resource,” SOVA’s Summers said. “Rick and his group have found a way to tap into it. It is a tremendous boost.”
So far this year, Food Forward has donated 58,000 pounds of fruit to SOVA. It has also donated to Project Chicken Soup, the American Diabetes Association and the Downtown Women’s Center.
“It’s crazy to think that what was a little thing I tried in a neighbor’s yard has now scaled to the point where almost two dozen agencies depend on us for fruit on a weekly basis,” Nahmias said.
For pantries to qualify as recipients, they must be able to provide refrigeration to preserve the fruit, be able to provide tax receipts to Food Forward and have a means to distribute the produce.
The operation and transportation also cost money, and these days, the Durfee Foundation and the Jewish Venture Philanthropy Fund are among Food Forward’s biggest financial donors.
In October 2009, the Jewish Venture Philanthropy Fund awarded Food Forward $25,000 — an unexpected gift, Nahmias said. He recalled what Evan Schlessinger, co-founder of the Jewish Venture Philanthropy Fund, said around the time of the grant: “You are the first group that is not Jewish by identification [that we are giving a grant to]. You are the first group that we are soliciting rather than soliciting us.”
MAZON, a grant-making organization that describes its work as a “Jewish response to hunger,” also recently awarded a $5,000 planning grant to Food Forward to develop a farmers market recovery program.
Food Forward’s success also may seem improbable, given its size. Nahmias works with only two paid staff members: Meg Glasser, managing director and Master Gardener, who develops partnerships with recipient agencies, and Max Kanter, the volunteer coordinator, who works hands-on with fruit pickers.
Nahmias himself didn’t take a salary until April of this year, and he is only a half-time employee while also continuing to work on his photography.
He calls David Levinson, founder of Big Sunday, his mentor, and the two have met over lunches, with Levinson giving some guidance.

Rick Nahmias, founder and exectuive director, loads boxes of harvested oranges into the Food Forward van for delivery.
“I think he’s a great guy, and I think what he’s doing with Food Forward is really cool,” Levinson said recently.
Despite all that Nahmias, who is Jewish, has done for SOVA, he says he does not see Food Forward as in any way a specifically Jewish organization.
“I think there’s absolutely a place for nonprofits that create Jewish identity, but when we’re talking about issues of feeding people and the engine that Food Forward is, and the thousands of volunteers that get involved, I want that to be something that everybody feels welcome at,” Nahmias said.
But, he said, he’s ready to welcome all who are willing to work: “We have The Jewish Federation come out and do picks with us. We embrace faith-based groups.”
Nahmias also never dreamed that one day he’d be running a nonprofit. “I have to be honest, I had absolutely no experience doing this,” he said. “You learn as you go.”
For now, however, Food Forward appears to be the only organization of its kind in Los Angeles. In Northern California, there are two gleaning organizations: Village Harvest in San Jose and Backyard Bounty, which also operates in Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and the Santa Ynez Valley.
Randy Baer, a 56-year-old cinematographer from La Canada, was among the 10 volunteers on the Oct. 1 pick in Northridge. His reason for signing up? “They make it very easy to volunteer,” he said as he picked some low-hanging oranges off a tree.
To pass the time, volunteers made small talk — chatting about a wedding, movies, schools. Koa Cano, a senior at Chaminade High School, in West Hills, stood on a thick branch and swung around, grabbing oranges with both hands.
When he was back on the ground, Cano unloaded his bounty into a box that already held about 50 oranges, “This is my favorite part,” he said.
“It’s a group activity and an opportunity to meet a lot of people you wouldn’t otherwise have reason to interact with,” said Dawn Coppin, 38, who also raises funds for the Los Angeles Public Library and volunteers as a picker for Food Forward twice a month.
When they’d finished the harvest, the volunteers loaded some of the 15 boxes of oranges into the Food Forward van, a Ford decorated with pictures of orange trees and displaying the Food Forward logo — somewhat resembling the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine. The license plate: FRTMBL1
Beyond the group’s obvious accomplishments, Nahmias also sees Food Forward as a means of building community. And in that, it has become, at least to some extent, a victim of its own success. Too many homeowners are signing up and have to go on a waiting list these days. The list now numbers 25 waiting to have their trees picked.
“I think the biggest setback right now is we are overburdened with properties,” Nahmias said. “We need more people who would become pick leaders … to get out once a month and lead a harvest.” Pick leaders must complete a brief training, including shadowing a pick leader.
At the same time, Fruit Forward is also trying to find more fruit trees to glean on the Westside, where there are far fewer trees than in the San Fernando Valley.
Nahmias said his organization’s ability to develop new programs is one of its best attributes.
“I think that’s why people were drawn to it at the beginning, and maybe still are, because it still pivots very quickly.” Among these is Can It!, created to bring in revenue that can go back into the organization. It produces jam from a portion of the harvested fruit, which is then sold online and at the Farmer’s Kitchen in Hollywood and at Clementine in Century City. Glasser is overseeing an effort to sell the jam to more bakeries, restaurants and specialty-food locations, particularly in the San Fernando Valley.
Nahmias remembers his early experiences of being up in a tree, surrounded by all the fruit, which to him meant, simply, so much potential to help people.
“It’s beautiful and maddening, because you realize you’re not going to get to it all,” he said.
“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.”

ORGANIZATION: Food Forward (501c3 non-profit),  www.foodforward.org

HOURS: 20-25 hours per week (M, W, F) at our North Hollywood office. The position starts as part – time, becoming full–time, projected Spring 2012

ORGANIZATION OVERVIEW:

Food Forward’s mission is to reconnect people with people – through food – by bringing together volunteers and neighbors to share in the gleaning and distributing of locally grown food from private homes and public spaces, with 100% going to  feed the hungry in our communities. We engage volunteers to harvest locally grown food, which is then distributed to local food pantries and organizations serving those in need. Since forming in 2009, Food Forward has rescued over 550,000 pounds of produce from over 325 local backyards and orchards.

Food Forward is growing by leaps and bounds and is at an exciting point in its development.  To keep up with the increasing opportunities and demands coming to our organization, we are looking for an individual who will maintain our Harvesting and Property database, working closely with fruit donors, Property Scouts and recipient agencies. This person will work with property owners who have fruit to donate by gathering essential harvesting and logistical information for our database to organize and coordinate picks. They will also work with the Volunteer Coordinator to ensure that all scheduled picks are filled with an adequate number of volunteers and will oversee the produce delivery to assigned recipient agencies. This person will oversee a growing corps of volunteer Property Scouts and work with our larger properties to schedule ‘Big Picks’ and coordinate the logistics of our Private Picks (for local corporate clients, faith-based organizations, school groups and non-profits).

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Harvest Coordinator will report to the Managing Director and will be responsible for the following:

-     Maintaining relationships with 300+ fruit donors and with 25+ recipient agencies (food pantries or donation centers)

-     Managing and improving a database of over 350 properties and over 2500 volunteers.

-     Scheduling 2 – 4 picks a week and working directly with the Volunteer Coordinator to ensure that each pick has enough support for its size and quantity of trees

-       Training and overseeing our Property Scouts to ensure that they are gathering and reporting property/tree information correctly

-       Working with our Executive Director to identify properties that are suitable for Private Picks, then coordinating the logistics for each of these events with property owners

-       Frequent written and verbal communication with property owners and recipient agencies

-       Updating our WordPress site and database

-        Act as a Food Forward liaison with outside agencies such as CA Dept. of Agriculture, Dept of Water & Power and LA City, regarding important information on public orchards and potential fruit quarantines.

-        Recording harvest notes, pounds and property details and recipient agency

-        Responsible for upkeep and management of harvest equipment

-        Additional projects and responsibilities to be defined as position grows to full-time in spring 2012.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Ideally, candidate will have a strong interest in hunger and food justice issues. We are looking for an extremely detail-oriented person who enjoys organizing and collecting data and can work efficiently and comfortably on a website to manage information. Candidate should be personable and able follow up with property owners of various personalities and temperaments. Candidate must have a strong knowledge of local fruit tree varietals and fruit tree care. Candidate should be highly versed in Los Angeles and SFV geography.

Other qualifications include:

-         Bachelors Degree in a related field

-         Knowledge of locally grown tree varieties, including harvest season, tree size and shape, fruit qualities (You will be tested)

-         Strong knowledge and comfort with WordPress, Twitter, Facebook and other social media.

-         Strong knowledge of LA and the SFV geography, neighborhoods and streets (You will be tested)

-       Experience in food justice work desired

-       Proven effective data management skills

-       Strong people and public speaking skills

-         Flexible, a team player, able to work well under pressure

-       Experience working in a fast paced environment, start up or non-profit desired

-       A valid drivers license and ability to easily navigate the SFV

-       Willingness to work some weekends

-       Bilingual in English and Spanish is preferred

COMPENSATION: $17,500/year (part – time). This position is projected to move to full time in Spring 2012 and will offer full-time salary and other benefits at that time.

NEXT STEP: To apply, please send a letter of interest in the body of an email describing why you are interested and what you are able to offer the role of Harvest Coordinator. Please attach your resume in PDF format and send to Meg, Managing Director, at meg[at]foodforward[dot]org with the subject “Harvest Coordinator.”

As the founder of this crazy group, the day had special resonance for me, as I can trace the roots of events and actions in my own life from the formation of Food Forward, directly back to a personal shift that happened for me exactly 10 years earlier, on 9/11/01. It was incredibly rewarding to see hundreds of Angelinos of all stripes, ages, sizes and backgrounds show up and unite to do good on a day they could have just as easily sat and passively in front a TV. It was a day about moving forward, giving back and strengthening what we have here in LA.
Our pantry partners – SOVA, MEND and Valley Interfaith Council – showed up strong and we thank them for getting this fruit out within hours of leaving the trees.
For those of you who missed it – please see our calendar of events for the rest of the month and join us up a tree.  http://foodforward.org/events
Warmly,
Rick N.