Ten years ago, four people gathered in Malea Guiriba’s front yard and divided up 122 lbs. of produce they’d purchased and then delivered it to a dozen senior citizens in need.
From that humble beginning grew a grassroots nonprofit that today regularly delivers fresh produce to 965 seniors in all parts of St. Johns County. Last year, the organization’s volunteers — the number of which now exceeds 330 — delivered more than 72 tons of produce.
And Guiriba expects that number to increase.
Furthermore, all of this is accomplished without reliance on state or federal tax dollars.
It’s the kind of success story that stops a person in his tracks. But none of this happened in a vacuum. To fully appreciate the accomplishments of this organization, Pie In The Sky, it is necessary to first understand Guiriba and the years that preceded its founding.
Lessons learned
Guiriba grew up in Jacksonville, the daughter of an electrician and a stay-at-home mom. Her childhood was influenced by the social upheaval of the ’60s and ’70s, and even from an early age she had no patience with injustice.
By the time she was in the seventh grade, desegregation was in full swing, and tensions were high.
“Me and my little friend Suzie, we would go running around with our peace necklaces and our tie-dye and break up fights,” she recalled. “I’ve always been a bit of a rebel.”
Even then, the seeds of service to others were sown by her mother’s example.
“I think those early messages that I got from her about taking care of other people, being kind whenever you have the opportunity, those were just instilled in me,” Guiriba said. “Not by words, but by her actions.”
Years later, researching a book she wanted to write about domestic violence, she began to volunteer with Quigley House in Clay County.
Eventually, she wound up in Hastings, where she started a rural program for Betty Griffin House (now the Betty Griffin Center). This would prove to be a key point in Guiriba’s progress toward Pie In The Sky.
But her parents had another lesson to teach her, a lesson about the hardship many seniors face.
The cost of aging
In 1999, Guiriba’s father had a stroke and had to go into assisted living. Her mother, meanwhile, had contracted stomach cancer and moved in with her daughter while undergoing chemo.
The couple had pinched pennies for 60 years, but they were now rapidly using up their savings.
“One day, I came home from work, and I found my momma sitting on the bed crying,” Guiriba recalled. “I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ And she said, ‘I just don’t know what we’re going to do. I’m afraid we’re going to outlive our money.'"
It wasn’t dying that worried her; it was living beyond their savings.
As it turned out, Guiriba’s parents died within months of each other.
“Had my daddy lived, they would have gone through 60 years’ worth of savings in under a year and been penniless,” she said. “That stuck with me.”
A Pie recipe
When the funding ended for Guiriba’s rural program, she didn’t want to abandon the people she’d worked so hard to help.
She was sitting in Johnny’s Café in Hastings with a friend when she had an idea: she could bake pies and sell them at the café to fund her work.
Her friend suggested she call it Pie In The Sky “because you have pie-in-the-sky ideas about how to help people!”
But the café owner agreed to the proposition, and she sold her pies for $2 a slice to raise the needed funds.
“I found out years later that, if he had known that I had never made a pie in my life, he probably wouldn’t have said yes,” Guiriba said, laughing.
Her first fundraiser generated $2,000.
For a while, Guiriba and her friends ran a twice-weekly food pantry at the former Hastings Elementary/Middle School with food from Feeding Northeast Florida.
She learned that some seniors in the community were not able to get to the pantry due to mobility issues.
A retired school teacher said her church group would take the food and deliver it to the homebound seniors.
Then, Guiriba and friends bought a former Zephyrhills Florida Spring Water delivery truck and converted that into a mobile farmers market to take produce out to food deserts.
In March 2016, all of this came together and the Pie In The Sky senior produce program was launched with that initial delivery to 12 seniors.
965 and counting
Today, Pie In The Sky makes deliveries to low-income seniors throughout the county. Each delivery includes 10 to 12 items and always tomatoes and bananas — healthy and highly prized by the recipients.
There will often be cabbage, corn, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, onions — whatever is in season. One sponsor ensures there is always a dozen eggs with each delivery, and the nonprofit usually receives free, short-dated bread and pastries to give out.
Volunteers gather at the Pie In The Sky warehouse on Riberia Street in St. Augustine and pack the bags, assembly-line fashion. Each food item is inspected to ensure the freshest, highest quality produce goes to the recipients.
The 96 geographically designed delivery routes allow volunteers to spend time with the seniors.
“It’s not just a stop-and-drop,” Guiriba said.
This is critical, as many seniors are isolated and need human interaction as much as they do nutrition.
“They often say that the food is nice, but the visits are even nicer,” Guiriba said.
This also gives the seniors enough support to age in place.
Still, the need for good food remains great. Statistical reports show that seniors living below the poverty level in St. Johns County probably number in the thousands. That means when the bills are paid, there’s little or nothing left over for food.
It costs Pie In The Sky about $900 to deliver to one senior for one year. That comes to more than $860,000. But Pie In The Sky won’t take state or federal funds because Guiriba doesn’t want to exclude anyone based on some government guidelines.
“There are no long forms to fill out, no application process,” she said. “Most importantly, if you’re hungry, you don’t need to wait anymore.”
Instead, the nonprofit relies solely on donations, grants and community support.
One reason Pie In The Sky is able to keep costs low is that the operation relies heavily on volunteers. In addition to its contingent of regular volunteers, many organizations, businesses, church groups, children's groups, college students, senior citizen groups and more devote time to helping the nonprofit.
Some volunteers and staff have even been known to go to the supermarket and buy food with their own money so that if a sudden need arises and there is nothing in the warehouse, a senior will not go hungry.
“That’s the kind of people Pie people are,” Guiriba said.
To donate or volunteer or to get more information, go to pieintheskystjohns.org.
