Serving Good is incredibly proud to be recognized as California Nonprofit of the Year. What began with one small food market has grown into an organization serving thousands of families each year while working to change the experience of free food distribution. This recognition belongs to our volunteers, partners, supporters, and everyone who has helped Serving Good grow.

The only thing that is better than the view from our market into San Diego is when we receive over 100 bouquets of flowers. While we offer a full range of food from produce, to deli items, to dairy products, to meat, to bread and pastries, our shoppers light up when they get to choose from a large selection of fresh flowers.

It’s that time of the year when we get pumpkins. We always seem to get just enough for all families. Bring your kids, grandkids, friends’ kids or any kid that wants a pumpkin.

We attract all generations of shoppers. We serve hundreds of families every week and many of the adults that come to our markets bring their kids. Shoppers come with their reusable shopping bags and more. Bringing a shopping cart was a first.

We are pleased to announce that Serving Good was honored by County Supervisor Joel Anderson on National Non-Profit Day our efforts to help others. We operate 2 free food markets every week and serve between 1,100 and 1,300 families a month at our markets every month.

If you have ever known or worked at a start-up company, you will often hear terms like employee #1 or employee #2. That’s because it’s a badge of honor for a person that was there from the beginning. We are very much the same.

What do we do when we are contacted to be the first agency partner to agree to pick up 3,000 pounds of beverages. We say YES within minutes. Now we have them.

Popsicles, including Bomb Pops, qualify as ice cream at our markets. That’s important because ice cream plays an important part of our markets. It’s all about kids.

We have been working on a lot to grow what we offer to the Serving Good community. One of our projects has been to develop a recipes section on our website that shares recipes that use the food at our markets. We are close…

Today is National Non-Profit Day and with that, we celebrate what we have accomplished. The past year has been incredible for all of us at Serving Good. We have grown very much like a start-up business.

When former Navy SEAL Don Zub (SEAL Team One, UDT-12, Class of ’91) contacted us to let us know that he was part of the team that was organizing the the 103rd birthday celebration for World War II Navy Gunners Mate First Class Lem Waggoner, Jr., we were the first to offer our support.
EXTENDED STORY WITH PHOTOS.

Few things are more meaningful than when we hear heart-felt gratitude from someone that we serve. Just one card expressing gratitude energizes our entire staff and volunteers that create the Serving Good experience. Thank you Christine.

The story of Pablo gets even better. See “Pablo Appears” below. If you come to the Market, you might think you are seeing double. Why? Because Pablo is a twin. While Pablo knew that he worked himself into a new nickname, his brother didn’t know that he would be drawn into the “Pablo Saga”. See “Pablo Appears” below.

The Crostini Challenge (see July 2, 2025 “The Challenge”) turned out to be more than what we imagined. People shared what they created, with most sharing how they made everything with the ingredients from our market. What did they create? Much more than traditional bruschetta.

When we get so much of a specific food item, it can change how we refer to it. In the case of receiving over 100 pounds of pizza rolls, we decided to temporarily alter the four food groups.

What do you get when you when you pick up over 100 large bags of toasted crostinis? The Crostini Challenge. Typically, we would place them toward the back of the market for shopper to pick up on their way out. We changed this so we could have some fun.

Teaching and mentoring students is a priority. Serving Good creates a community that serves others. This includes teaching and guiding teens and young adults as they develop skills and become adults. We are passionate about this in every sense of the word.

We pick up a lot of pastries, which includes cakes. One week, we picked up pastries, including a birthday cake that had a message: Happy Birthday Pablo! So when the Market began, we wanted to see if maybe Pablo came to our Market. Well, we got a surprise.

Sometimes it’s not adults that step up and set an example in the Serving Good community. In this case it was a 15 year-old boy that didn’t hesitate to help when needed. We didn’t know who he was until we asked among our community of shoppers. We knew his name was Lucas and we wanted to thank him.

When we began picking up food for stores, we received some produce that was just not suitable for people. Yet we saw throwing it away as a waste. Early on, we developed relationships with local farms and ranches that could use this food. In the second quarter of this year, we formalized our Food for Farms program.