Arcadia Brothers Harvest Fruit For San Gabriel Valley Families

ARCADIA (CBS) — A pair of Arcadia brothers are harvesting fruit — and goodwill — to provide fresh produce to needy families in the San Gabriel Valley.

KNX 1070's Diane Thompson reports unlike most teens their age, Zach and Jackson Selby spend most of their weekends picking fruit.

"We pick a variety of different fruits," said Jackson. "We usually pick lemons and oranges are our main things and tangerines, but we sometimes get avocados, figs, grapefruits, pomegranates."

The two Arcadia high school students run a non-profit called "Fruit For All" — an idea that Jackson said came to his big brother Zach two years ago after their backyard guava tree was overloaded with much of the fruit rotting on the floor.

"We noticed that most of it was going to waste and we wanted to have it go to someone who needs it, and we thought this would be perfect," he said.

The Selby brothers harvest the fruit at homes in a 20-to-30 mile radius in the San Gabriel Valley, where Zach, Jackson and their volunteers gather about 500 pounds of fruit every weekend and truck it off at several food banks including the Foothill Unity Center and the Union Rescue Mission.

But the harvest wasn't always plentiful.

"In the beginning you could say it was a little tough to get homeowners to donate their fruit," said Zach.

The brothers estimate they have picked up to 70,000 pounds of fruit over the course of the last two years, including a bountiful weekend in January when they reaped over 2,000 pounds of grapefruits, oranges and other produce from several houses in Pasadena, Monrovia, and Covina.