California Grey Bears is celebrating its 33rd Anniversary this year. Two UCSC students and two seniors started Grey Bears to provide surplus produce from their own gardens for seniors in need. They initially targeted 100 low-income seniors for the service, and, as a result, these seniors stretched their food dollars and lived healthier and more independent lives. This initial effort grew and matured and now is at the point that 2,300 predominately low-income seniors throughout Santa Cruz County receive weekly donations of fresh produce totally over a million pounds of food per year from donors in the tri-county area.
Seniors Helping Seniors: We are a nonprofit organization that combines income from our own on- and off-site profit centers, public funding and private donations with senior volunteer services to provide fresh produce for needy seniors and the frail elderly through our weekly Brown Bag Program. Our nurturing family-like environment mobilizes 500 seniors to use their life skills for the benefit of others. A weekly Brown Bag usually contains 15 lbs.+ of fresh produce that may include broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, cucumbers, strawberries, radishes, zucchini, etc. 100 volunteer drivers deliver Brown Bags to distribution centers and directly to the homebound. Grey Bear volunteers serve 100,000 hours a year–labor worth $675,000 even using the very conservative standard of the California minimum wage of $6.75/hr.
Full Circle Recycling: Our recycling efforts started in the mid-70s by collecting newspaper county-wide to roll into bundles for sale to the floral industry for shipping insulation. Now teams of able senior gleaners salvage high quality produce passed over in recently-harvested fields. Seniors operate our profitable Thrift Store. Food salvage is recycled into marketable compost in our Earth Tub Project. We operate the County's recycling center at the Buena Vista Landfill and take in paper, cardboard, glass, plastic and aluminum at our own Chanticleer Avenue facility in Live Oak. We also collect cardboard regularly from small and medium-size businesses. Our hard-working seniors are very busy!
