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Help name the truck that will haul fruit for Salem families

Elise Bauman, executive director of Salem Harvest, stands next to the yet-to-be-named truck purchased in early 2022 to help haul produce from smaller harvests (Submitted photo)

Salem Harvest needs your best vehicle-naming skills.

The Salem nonprofit, which salvages produce from area farms that would otherwise go unharvested, has a new truck to help with the 2022 season.

The 4×4 Nissan Frontier is the second vehicle in the Salem Harvest fleet. The organization’s larger Ford F450, named Sunflower, can haul six totes of produce, but is too large to get between orchard rows and guzzles gas unnecessarily for smaller harvests that don’t require her full load capacity, said Elise Bauman, Salem Harvest executive director.

After a holiday fundraising campaign, Bauman purchased the new truck earlier this year. It will be used for lower-volume harvests like berries, cherries and hazelnuts, hauling food to the agencies that distribute it to Salem families in need.

We are super excited to use it as much as possible to save gas. Sunflower, our larger harvest truck, can carry a lot, but she guzzles the gas. This truck will get nearly twice as many miles per gallon. Good for the environment and our pocket book,” Bauman said in an email.

Bauman wants the community to vote on five possible names for the truck, selected from 24 submitted by donors who helped fund its purchase. The names are:

Bud

Filbert

Polly- Nator

Raindrop

Sprout

Those interested can vote on a name until Thursday, May 19 using this form.

-Rachel Alexander