Josh and I found out about this non-profit through two separate sources: my MIL sent us a link to the 3000 Club soon after we first moved to Marana, Arizona and one of Josh’s customers told him about Market on the Move and then gave him a bag of tomatoes she had bought at the market. We were impressed with the tomatoes and their website. We didn’t get to try Market on the Move for ourselves until about three weeks ago when I made a trip into Tucson to go grocery shopping.

What does the 3000 Club do? The 3000 Club is a non-profit charity based in Phoenix, Arizona that works through their Market on the Move program with food banks in Arizona and California to save produce that would otherwise be thrown away or just go to waste. They also recycle old electronics and have a blanket program for the homeless as well as a medical aid program to underserved populations in the United States and internationally.

Because of COVID-19, Market on the Move in Tucson has been functioning differently for a few months by offering drive-thru produce pickup with a $10 donation instead of shopping in-person at their market. I should have taken pictures the first time I drove through a few weeks ago but it was definitely 60 pounds worth of good produce! We received oranges, a watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, a huge bag of zucchini (through which I was able to introduce my kids to zucchini bread and now they love it… as long as it has chocolate chips in it!), apples, carrots, onions, a half gallon of milk, and a bag of hash browns. I’m sure I’ve missed something in that list and there was probably even more than that.

The second week we ended up with so much (3 bags of romaine lettuce, two bags of onions, two bags of potatoes, three cantaloupes, two bags of oranges, two bags of apples, three English cucumbers, spaghetti squash, two bags of frozen hash browns and a whole flat of strawberries!!) that I knew we wouldn’t eat it all so we had to share! I’m hoping to do this again next week and share if possible. I would have gone yesterday but we still had too much produce left over from last week’s box.

They will be soft reopening up their market during the week soon, but that won’t be starting until July.

We have been putting our produce to good use and if some of it ended up being too old or wilted for us to eat, the chickens were happy to eat it! We also composted or bokashi composted what the chickens wouldn’t eat.

What we’ve made with our boxes of produce:

Remember that flat of strawberries? We definitely could not eat 8 pounds of strawberries so Josh canned 6 pounds of it into strawberry jam. He says he’s not too happy with how his jam turned out but he canned it anyway. I think it will taste great even if the jam was not as thick as he liked.

I’ve never been a big fan of spaghetti squash. Maybe because it masquerades as spaghetti when it’s not? I wasn’t going to try making spaghetti out of it like I have before, so instead I opted for stuffing it! It was definitely better that way!

The recipe I used is from the Food Network. I don’t think I followed it exactly but it was close! I think we were out of spinach, I didn’t put in tomatoes, I left out the heavy cream, and I topped the squash with mozzarella cheese.

Sausage and White Bean Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

I would definitely eat spaghetti squash this way again! The kids could do without eating it I think. They aren’t really fans of any squash except pumpkin when it’s in a pie.

Though I did find out this past week that they like zucchini bread! Since we had a huge bag of zucchini to use up, I found one way to do that. I’ve made four loaves of zucchini bread in the past week and I think we only have one slice left now.

Simply Recipes comes through again for me with a recipe for zucchini bread that I really loved. Simply Recipes also has my favorite banana bread recipe. The recipe doesn’t call for chocolate chips; in fact, I made one loaf with pecans and raisins and that tasted great but the kids liked the loaf with chocolate chips best. Best thing about this recipe: it makes two loaves, which works great for my large family.

Zucchini Bread Recipe at Simply Recipes

What was the other way we used up our zucchini? Josh air fried breaded zucchini slices and they were so good that I asked him to make them again. I wish I could share a recipe and pictures of them, but since it was Josh’s recipe, I didn’t think to!

Here are links to the 3000 Club website and Facebook pages in case you missed them in the post. You can read more about what they do and even support them if you wish to!

The 3000 Club on Facebook – Main Warehouse and other locations in Phoenix

The 3000 Club Tucson – Facebook page for the Tucson Warehouse and Market on the Move locations

The 3000 Club on WordPress – their main website

Thanks so much for reading and have a blessed Sunday!

-Lynn