This is an important question. I used to teach about local, fresh, healthy, food, and know how critical it is. And for this pantry, it’s been amazing. Canned items are often higher in sodium and have lower nutritional value, so when you can build out someone’s menu by offering fresh produce and meat, it makes a difference – especially for our many clients with hypertension and type 2 diabetes. We schedule our client pick-ups and deliveries around when Spoonfuls drops off, too. Spoonfuls comes Tuesday morning, and we try to have all the food out to our clients Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning. Because we’re receiving perishable items, we want to get it to our clients as soon as possible. Jon and Rich [Spoonfuls Food Rescue Coordinators] understand our unique needs, too. They know, for example, that bigger, whole fruits aren’t great for our clients. Many are older adults dealing with mobility issues, so chopping can be challenging. If we give someone with arthritis a watermelon, we worry it may go to waste because of that mobility barrier to chopping, which means that person doesn’t get to eat food that they need, while Spoonfuls could have brought the watermelon somewhere else where it could be enjoyed. On the other hand, Jon and Rich know berries and pre-cut fruit are great for our clients because they’re nutritious and no chopping is involved! We always appreciate receiving them. We are so grateful for our partnership with Lovin’ Spoonfuls and how easy it is to work with Jon and Rich. The weekly deliveries truly allow us to provide a variety of foods to our clients and partnerships such as these allow us to proudly say that we never have to turn anyone away who is in need.