TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) -
We
might be in warmer temperatures now, but one agency is still paying for last
week's cold spell.
The
community food bank typically sends out volunteers to pick fruit throughout the
city, to in turn give to clients. But
you won't see them out this year, after the cold killed the citrus.
Oranges,
lemons, and grapefruits are harder to come by at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona.
"The freeze really destroyed probably 90
percent of that product so while it's still good for juicing it's not really
good for people to eat," said Bill Carnegie, President/ CEO of Community Food Bank.
The
food bank follows USDA guidelines which say fruit exposed to freeze can go
bad quick.
"The
product begins to rot so what we're trying to do is get it out as quickly as we
can," he said.
Volunteers
will typically collect about 300,000 pounds of citrus to be included in
food disbursements.
This
year, citrus collection has been canceled.
Debbie Duggins is on a fixed income and looks forward to getting affordable fresh
fruit this time of year.
"You
get creative, you read the sales ads, and if you're lucky enough you have
neighbors that have trees that we share," she said.
The community
food bank serves non profits that feed more than 200,000 people every
month.
Now
it's relying on a citrus shipment from Phoenix to beef up their bags of
groceries.
"They
didn't have the extreme temperatures there that we did here, so we expect our
first truck load of citrus tomorrow which is only going to supplement what
we're doing here."
Typically
the food bank would do it's fruit collection in April as well, but that's been
canceled too.
The
food bank is still willing to take in fruit if you want to drop it off.
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