Fruits and Veggies

My family and I live in the out skirts of Santa Ana.  Not the typical OC neighborhood.  Which I love.  It doesn't have a guarded fence, or even a white picot fence, it doesn't have underground electricity or cable, we have big huge poles that run up and down the street.  It doesn't have the best school (which is difficult).  Most of our neighbors are original owners of their homes, which where built in the 1950s.  Our home is great.  Our neighbors make me smile. Except for a few bad apples for the most part it is an OK neighborhood.   I like that my neighbor yells at me from over the brink fence, I like that my neighbor across the street waits to say hi to me when I get out of my car.  I like that my other neighbor sits out on his porch and I like that they all know and love our kids.  They come over with little treats for them and are happy to sit and talk with them.  I like that I can go borrow a few eggs from them if I am out and making something and forgot that I needed eggs...well you get the picture. 

Oh wait - part of the picture is that our neighborhood often gets visits by the police, the police helicopter and the swat team! It is a great neighborhood!!!


Our family is blessed to be able to go outside of our neighborhood to grocery shop.  You will often find me in Costa Mesa at Henry's buying fruits and veggies.  The one thing that truly troubles my heart is that our local grocery store does not carry fresh produce for a reasonable price.  We live in a low income neighborhood, where most of the families are Hispanic and live with a few of their relatives (btw -- which is how I grew up...living with my mom, brother, sister, grandma, uncle and cousins).  It truly bothers me that when I go to the grocery store here in Santa Ana the chips and junk food are the very first things you see.  They are in fact outside of the store with marked down prices.  You have to go all the way to the back of the store to get to the produce department, all of which is over priced and on the verge of going bad. 

RRR's school has a sign outside of the gates that says "A choice for healthy kids".  Then I see the logos on there and none of them are from our own neighborhood.  How are kids suppose to be healthy when they are not given fresh fruits and veggies.  I see it, I see that people are buying frozen food dinners for their family's b/c they are a dollar.  And a pound of strawberries is almost 5 dollars.  I know it is more than just the choices at the grocery stores.  I know all that.  But I think they should at least have a fighting chance.  I know all parents have the choice of what they feed their kids but when you only have 5 dollars to spend on food for the day what do you think the parents are going to choose, the frozen dinner or the strawberries? 

So as I shop in Costa Mesa where this week I bought 2 pounds of strawberries for 4 bucks, a watermelon for $.38/pound, 2 pounds of cherries for $3.50 and all our normal veggies for under 25 bucks...it makes me sad for the kids that live around my corner. 

So when given the chance to take snacks to RRR's school I am happy to take a bucket of strawberries!  Which is RRR's favorite food in the whole world!!! :)