CNN Hero Helps Impoverished Californians Eat Healthy
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This week's CNN Hero chooses to live in one of California's most impoverished community to bring health and wellness to people who so desperately need it.</s>SARAH RAMIREZ, CNN HERO: Pixley is a small community located in the central part of California. We are in this agriculturally rich area and yet people who live here and work here are hungry, are impoverished. Some are working in the fields that feed the entire country and then they don't have the resources to support them and their health? It's heartbreaking. I can't just watch that and not wonder, is there something more that we could do? What we do is we glean mostly from backyards. Today, we're looking at a glean of about 6,400 pound, and that's incredible. My husband and I grew up in Pixley. My parents, they worked in the fields. I had family members who died at very young ages due to chronic diseases like diabetes. For those of you that are high school students -- Looking at these issues of poverty and obesity, we were trying to figure out how do we provide our resource for our communities and our homes. We actually have a component in our garden that's a you-pick area, if your household needs some fruits and vegetables. We really try to teach how to use what we're growing. I want to grow old, and I want to grow old in a healthy way, and I want that for everybody.</s>BALDWIN: All these awesome stories we get here at CNN. By the way, each week, we honor a new CNN Hero, someone could be in your neighborhood, making a difference, so if you'd like to nominate someone you know, go to CNNHeroes.com -- CNNHeroes.com. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Have a wonderful weekend. Stay right here, though. My colleague Jake Tapper begins with "THE LEAD" in Washington.