Desert Garden Gleaners picked nearly 9 tons of citrus!

Desert Garden UCC’s Citrus Gleaning Ministry Team has completed its 2021 work with 17,720 lbs of citrus!

Mission Outreach Ministry Team announces the completion of a second year of Citrus Gleaning. Our first year (2020) was interrupted by bad weather and Covid-19. Even then, we were able to complete five weeks of gleaning resulting in 32 trees gleaned and 6,525 pounds of citrus picked. This year (2021) beginning with the last Thursday of January and continuing for eight weeks, Desert Garden’s Gleaning Ministry Team was able to pick and provide much more citrus for St. Mary’s Food Bank. During this period twenty-one volunteers helped with the gleaning putting in 200 hours of time. Eighty-six trees were gleaned providing 17,720 pounds of citrus for the food bank, who then distributed that citrus to families in need. We are grateful to St. Mary’s for providing all the equipment to be successful in this effort.

It was more vital that we reach out to the community with this ministry because Desert Garden UCC was one of only three organizations gleaning in Sun City West this year.  In addition to the weekly Thursday morning gleaning, each Saturday in February, St. Mary’s used our parking lot as a drop off site, allowing people to bring their citrus to them. St. Mary’s provided the truck with staff and volunteers to receive the citrus that was brought. Timothy Olorunfemi, Program Manager for Gleaning and Food Sourcing at St. Mary’s shared these thoughts.

“St Mary’s Food Bank was able to collect about 25,200 lbs. of assorted citrus during the month of February from our Desert Garden church location. This amounts to about 21,000 meals. These were added to the regular meals provided to the residents of Arizona. This helps the homeowners find homes for their citrus that would have gone to the landfill. We are very grateful to Desert Garden UCC for partnering with us to make this happen. We hope to continue this project next year.”

A huge thanks to these volunteers who helped glean over the eight weeks: Lynn Bowers, Jerry Cowdrey, John Gnagy, Sue Gnagy, Sandy Hauth, John Houlette, James Iliff, Bill Johnston, Sally Koffman, Gail Mattson, Doug Nordahl, Patty Nordahl, Penny Rasala, John Riddle, Judy Riddle, Mary Sersland, Deanna Shafer, Patsy Taylor, Karen Turgeon, and Les Turgeon. It is through their efforts that Desert Garden UCC has provided a ministry beyond its own walls to reach into the broader community.