CHELAN, Wash. — A man from Chelan, who calls himself "The Apple Guy," is going city to city, selling fruit.
It's part of a larger effort to provide healthy and affordable food options to communities of color.
"The Apple Guy," Hugo Sanchez Garcia, is always on the move.
"I am selling apples. Honey crisp apples, Rainier cherries and bing cherries. Well, I was selling honey crisp apples... they just ran out actually like a couple of seconds," said Sanchez Garcia.
Sanchez Garcia was working at a local university right before the pandemic hit, so he had to quickly switch gears.
"My dad for a few years actually has been, he's like 'you should go sell apples, like, you can get apples to a really good price and like people over in western Washington love apples,'" said Sanchez Garcia.
So he became "The Apple Guy" and is now using his passions for social justice and entrepreneurship to help distribute and sell fresh and affordable food.
Sanchez Garcia says he's sold more than 30,000 pounds of apples since he started his project in April.
He offers sliding scale prices, allowing anyone in need to pay what they can afford.
In this Facebook post, Sanchez Garcia explains his why access to healthy food; including apples is symbolic of deeply-rooted issues impacting communities of color.
"Whether you're looking at like Yakima or Chelan, and there has been an increase, there continues to be the highest numbers of like cases of COVID, in these in these particular communities are with farm-workers. I mean, there are layers, there are layers upon layers of things that require us to treat food, as political as it actually is," said Sanchez Garcia.
Sanchez Garcia said he plans to continue his food project until it starts snowing on the passes, which would make his 10-hour long travel days difficult.
To find out more about The Apple Guy's drop-off locations, check out his Facebook page.