"we pick fruit growing on the side of the road and in people's yards all over the atlanta area and we donate it to local homeless shelters and food banks"
That seems questionable. Normally you aren't supposed to eat anything from near the side of the road because there is often still tons of lead and other contaminants there from the cars. This is especially true of food that comes from trees, because they accumulate these contaminants inside of them.
it is a complicated issue with such a wide variety of places that we pick from, and the uptake amount and destination within the plant varies by species and the pollutant in question. my understanding is that in general plants do not extensively uptake lead or arsenic, and that most cases of heavy metal ingestion from produce comes from poorly washing it, or not peeling roots/tubers (which we don't pick)
for what it's worth, we have made cider from our apples and had it tested for heavy metals, which it passed ("below threshold" -- not clear if that was the detection limit of the machine, or against a concentration standard)
the vast majority of things we pick are also actually from people's yards (with permission -- no one wants what they've got). while the assumption there is that it is safer soil than something that's literally next to the interstate, it is true though that we have not tested the soil of every single place we pick.
it also brings up the question of how safe "real" farmland is, as many of them are located near roadsides, or once used lead arsenate as an insecticide, or ...
That seems questionable. Normally you aren't supposed to eat anything from near the side of the road because there is often still tons of lead and other contaminants there from the cars. This is especially true of food that comes from trees, because they accumulate these contaminants inside of them.