Claycord's Lemon Lady wins Jefferson Award

Anna Chan, the Lemon Lady of Claycord, is sending out a letter to her friends, notably her friends at the farmers markets in the area, announcing that she is being honored with a Jefferson Award.

These prestigious awards recognize community and public service on both a national and local level. They began in 1972 to essentially create a Nobel Prize for public service; today, their primary purpose is to serve as a "call for action" for volunteers.

We have all become acquainted with Anna and her "one-woman campaign against hunger." She and her daughter Ava began traveling around our area, looking for fruit to pick from people's front yard trees, which they began to donate to local food banks and food pantries. Pretty soon, Anna was making the rounds of local farmers markets, where farmers have generously donated produce, which she then transports to food banks and food pantries.

Her delightful and informative blog tells us that she has harvested at least 12,000 pounds of local fresh produce. Her blog lets all of us in the East Bay 'burbs about what's going on with the food banks, the farmers markets, and community gardens.

Actually, she first came to the attention of the blogger friends, the Mayor of Claycord and Mister Writer through her advocacy on behalf of Katie Grace Groebner a local 7-year-old girl who suffers from a rare disease, pulmonary hypertension, and who will soon need a heart and lung transplant. By the way, as Anna points out in her latest post on Katie Grace, November is Pulmonary Hypertension Awareness Month.

Anna says that CBS5 will be taping an interview with her on December 1, and that her story should air sometime between December 6 and 12.

The Lemon Lady of Clayton starts her own blog

Go, Anna Chan! She's started her own blog, called The Lemon Lady, about her one-woman fruit-collection and produce growing efforts, all designed to get fresh fruit and veggies into the hands of local needy and hungry families.



She's one of our community's local heroes. She's a stay-at-home mom from Clayton who has found a simple but ingenius way to get produce into the hands of those in need.


I've profiled her before, and so have blogging friends, the Mayor of Claycord, Mister Writer, for her work on behalf of Katie Grace Groebner, a young local girl who suffers from a rare disorder and needs a heart-and-lung transplant. She has also been profiled in a blog on Diablo magazine's website.


Here's more of what Anna says about her campaign on her website:

One-woman Campaign Against Hunger. 4,300 pounds of local fruit harvested in two months! Meeting true angels along the way. Lemons, oranges, grapefruit, apricots, plums, peaches, tomato, bean or zucchini, one by one, all for the greater good of humanity. Hoping to inspire others about summer vegetable donations to local food pantries: the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, the Salvation Army at the Concord Community Church, the Monument Crisis Center, the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano's blog.

Be warned, Anna, with this blog. It could become an addiction. We moms, or so they say, and as I've written before, can become prey to that!


Meanwhile, continued good luck with all your great work!