SALINAS, CA – Brighter Bites, a nonprofit organization that delivers fresh fruits, vegetables and nutrition education resources directly into families’ hands, is pleased to name River Fresh Farms a key partner in Salinas, CA.
Through this partnership, River Fresh Farms provides supply chain management and logistic support including storing, loading, packing and delivering produce boxes for the Brighter Bites program. To date, the River Fresh Farms partnership has served 1,200 Brighter Bites families and looks forward to supporting 800 additional families through this year.
“We are truly inspired by the dedication River Fresh Farms has brought to our Salinas location,” said Brighter Bites CEO Rich Dachman. “As a company, they have gone above and beyond to not only assist with logistics, but also help pack boxes on the weekends to support the families in this community. River Fresh truly cares and has dedicated resources to make it work. It is partners like this that allow us to make a difference in the communities we serve.”
The location of this particular program makes it different from other partnerships due to its proximity to the vast number of fresh farms in Salinas. Headquartered in the heart of the Salinas Valley, River Fresh Farms offers a wide variety of premium quality value-added salads, commodities, and specialty produce year-round. River Fresh Farms utilizes their list of local distributors to source fresh produce donations to ensure the needs of each Brighter Bites produce box is fulfilled.
“Partnering with Brighter Bites is our way of giving back to our community,” said Vince Ballesteros, CEO of River Fresh Farms. “When Rich approached us about launching the Brighter Bites program in the Salinas Valley, we knew we had to be involved in some way.”
Brighter Bites, which is based in Houston, is dedicated to creating healthy communities by providing produce and nutrition literacy to families in cities throughout the country. The organization works with families in over 120 school settings in seven cities, with each family receiving approximately 25 pounds of fresh, seasonal produce and nutrition education on a weekly basis. Brighter Bites families are actively engaged during the program, with data showing that they consume significantly more fresh produce and talk about nutrition more often in their homes.
To learn more about Brighter Bites, visit brighterbites.org, or follow the organization on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter or YouTube.
# # #
About Brighter Bites:
Brighter Bites is a nonprofit that creates communities of health through fresh food with the goal of changing behavior among children and their families to prevent obesity and achieve long-term health. Brighter Bites is an evidence-based, multi-component elementary school, preschool, and summer camp program that utilizes reliable access to fruits and vegetables, nutrition education, and consistent exposure to recipes and messages that feature fresh food. Since 2012, Brighter Bites has provided nearly 40 million pounds of produce and millions of nutrition education materials to more than 475,000 individuals (including teachers) in Houston, Dallas, Austin, New York City, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area, and Southwest Florida. In February 2021 Brighter Bites expanded its programming to Salinas, California.
