On Saturday, September 26, the hall at the Ruggieri Senior Center filled up and Daily Bowl turned ten. Diamonds in the Rough was a party, a fundraiser and a thank-you note all at once. Now that the tables are folded and the crates are back in the van, we would like to say the thank-you part properly.
This began with thirty pounds of catering food on May 11, 2016. Since then Daily Bowl has recovered more than 7.5 million pounds of good food that would otherwise have been thrown away, and moved it to the neighbours and agencies who needed it. None of that is the work of one organisation. It is the work of the people who were in that room.
To everyone who did the work
Thank you to the volunteers who sorted, drove, lifted, plated and served, many of whom spent the evening working rather than sitting down. Thank you to our board and to the staff who kept a decade of deliveries running while also planning a party. Thank you to the chefs and the kitchen crew, who turned rescued produce into a dinner nobody would have guessed was rescued.
Our sponsors
The evening was underwritten by people and organisations who decided that ten years of food recovery was worth backing.
- Title Sponsor — Elisa Márquez, Supervisor, Alameda County District 2, Sisters of the Holy Family
- Harvest Bowl — Fremont Bank; Daylight Foods
- Farmers Bowl — Kaiser Permanente; Grewal Foundation; Supervisor David Haubert, Alameda County District 1
- Friends and Family Bowl — Republic Services; Supervisor Lena Tam, Alameda County Third District; Lance & Tina Nishihira Impact Fund; Vesta Foodservice; Washington Health; Washington Health Employee Association
And to the people we work with every week
Thank you to the grocers, caterers, distributors and growers who call us instead of the dumpster, and to the pantries, shelters, schools and community agencies who take what we bring and get it to the table. Ten years of this only works because both ends of that chain show up.
Ten years in, the idea is the same as it was on the first day: imperfect produce still has worth, and so does every neighbour it feeds. Here is to the next ten.
— Paddy Iyer, Co-Founder & Executive Director, and Lance Nishihira, Co-Founder & Board President
The night in pictures
