The Brightside: Surplus Watermelons Find New Homes in Wicomico County

WICOMICO COUNTY, Md. — It’s a sweet day for the community, and it all starts with watermelon in the newest edition of Brightside, sponsored by Choptank Electric Cooperative.

Watermelons are filling grocery store shelves, but not all of them will make the cut. Instead of letting perfectly good fruit go to waste, volunteers are giving it away for free.

Program Coordinator Alena Wright said, “We’re really grateful to be able to do this. Fifty-six bins of watermelon, 40,000 watermelons, brought to be distributed in Salisbury for free. That’s so exciting. This is work that we do every day of the week.”

The Society of St. Andrew works to save food from going to waste while helping limit food insecurity in the community. Wright said the organization distributed 3.5 million pounds of food in the last year.

“We work with local farmers to take things that are unsold. Too big, too small, slightly bruised, still totally edible. You see this watermelon over there, beautiful watermelon, and we’re able to distribute those to the community for free,” Wright said.

In an area like the Eastern Shore, where farming is a key component of the local economy, the organization is doing its part to support farmers.

“Our farmers are growing good food to feed people, and unfortunately, a lot of it just gets left in the fields. So, we take gleaners out to the fields, we rescue it, or we’re able to pay a pack-out cost to the farmers,” Wright said.

Whether it’s sweet watermelon, blueberries, corn, tomatoes or broccoli, the organization works to make sure nothing goes to waste.

“We worked with 114 different feeding agencies last year. So that was low-income apartment complexes, senior centers, food pantries, food banks, churches, schools, so many places where people are experiencing food insecurity,” Wright said.

Having access to farm-grown, healthy and fresh food not only impacts the people receiving it, but also gives volunteers a sense of purpose.

So while neighbors are going home with something sweet, these volunteers say they’re taking home something even sweeter: the feeling of making a difference.