Basin's Backyard Garden donation fills need at Heaven's Helpers Soup Cafe

Basin Electric employees donated their homegrown vegetables twice over the past week.

When veggie taxi driver Sabrina Hojian, Basin Electric network security analyst II, saw employees had dropped off veggies on a non-delivery day, she took it upon herself to make a taxi run. She drove 39 pounds of cucumbers and squash to Heaven's Helpers Soup Cafe. "The gal was so thankful," Hojian says. "She said one of the helpers has a recipe that calls for star squash, and also the residents love the cucumber salad they make."

Then on our normal delivery day, Whitney Fischer, Basin Electric senior financial operations analyst, taxied another 73 pounds of homegrown produce to the Soup Cafe as well. "They were very appreciate of the donation," Fischer says. "When I dropped off the donation at 12:45 p.m., the parking lot was incredibly full so it is going to a great cause."

The second donation had apples, green and yellow bean, zucchini, melon cucumbers, regular cucumbers, and tomatoes, including cherry tomatoes.

Fischer says she loves being a veggie taxi driver. "I enjoy helping out with this cause as I grew up on a farm with a huge garden," she says. "We basically lived on that for vegetables throughout the whole year. I am now spreading the joy of that to others."

The week's total donation was 112 pounds of good, fresh, local food, the year's biggest donation so far.

In 2022 to date, Basin Electric gardeners have donated nearly 440 pounds of food to local food pantries.