(Exira) Delivering fresh produce to rural areas without major grocery stores is the idea behind Bountiful Baskets. The community of Exira has seen a big response to its presence in town.
Each basket contains 50% fruit and 50% vegetables for a cost of under $20. Katie Wheeler was a driving force behind Exira becoming an outlet. “Bountiful Baskets is a food co-op that gives local people the opportunity to pool their money together to buy large quantities of produce for less money. Every two weeks people in the area can log on to bountifulbaskets.org and contribute for their basket. They can also get add ons which are different each week.”
Snack packs, lunch packs, bundles of a specific fruit, and organic options are all available. Wheeler says you get about $45 worth of produce for $19. “It’s a different variety each time. That kind of makes it fun for kids. That’s why we started this, I was going to Walnut to get their baskets at their site and it was fun for the kids to see something different. It made us try new fruits and veggies that maybe we normally wouldn’t buy in the store.”
Shipments come in every two weeks to the Exira Event Center. Each individual’s pick up time is posted on the Exira Fresh Produce Facebook page. Wheeler says it’s been a big hit. “It really has been. We started out doing one distribution which is 96 baskets and we were selling out of those within minutes so we pushed for two distributions which usually doesn’t happen until you have more training and experience, but we had enough demand for it that they let us do it. We’ve been doing two distributions which is 192 baskets total and we’ve been selling out of those as well. It’s been well received.”
The Exira Community Club provides upwards of 15 volunteers to sort through produce, place it in baskets, and handle distribution.
