Central Valley receives tasty donation to help community

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Mandarins were delivered straight from the packing house in Delano to Valley Children's Hospital.

The Wonderful Company donated two pallets of easy-peel, healthy snacks.

"Which I believe is 1200 bags of Halos, and I'm sure our staff and our patients and families who are with us will definitely enjoy them," says Valley Children's Guilds Manager, Janet Sabbatini.

The mandarins will be handed out at the hospital on Tuesday. Kaitlyn Yates is Wonderful's Senior Manager of Community Programming.

"We're just so grateful for all the front-line workers who are out there keeping us all safe," she said. "We want to do our part for them to stay safe."

The idea was to reach out to communities where the need is greatest.

Wonderful donated 1.6 million mandarins to local hospitals, schools and the Central California Food Bank, which has seen a huge increase in families who need help putting food on the table.

"Prior to COVID, we were serving about 70,000 families a month," says Kim Dildine. "We've seen that go well over 100,000 families. Again, 25% were brand new. They never sought services before."

About 24,000 bags were delivered to the food bank. The mandarins were immediately packed for food giveaways.