James Harrald
Our annual kick-off meeting is on Saturday, Jan. 24, at 10 a.m. This will be a new location from years past. It will be held at Lindsey Hall at Sun Lakes United Methodist Church located at 9248 E. Riggs Road, Sun Lakes, AZ 85248. We will cover all the picking dates, get you teamed up in the area you want to pick, and review all our methods and processes.
We need to let you know that St. Mary’s Food Bank no longer accepts tangerines, which are the small oranges you might refer to as “Little Cuties” from the store. We will only take oranges, grapefruit, and lemons. Quality is essential, so please have your garbage can available for unusable fruit.
The picking season will start on Saturday, Jan. 31, and run through Monday, March 2. We start around 8 a.m. each day and wrap up before noon. The semi-truck from St. Mary’s Food Bank will pick up the pallets each day, so we want to be finished so we do not delay them.
We do have a very full database of existing homes with trees to be picked, but if you would like to get on the waitlist, please call Gloria at 602-316-6415. If you are interested in helping pick but are not able to make the meeting, please email james.m.harrald@gmail.com.
The dates for this year are Jan. 31, Feb. 2, 7, 9, 14, 16, 21, 23, and 28, and March 2. Again, picking is between 8 a.m. and noon. If you are already on our database, please be patient while your area captain sets their schedules.
We look forward to serving the Sun Lakes community and hope we have a bumper crop to give St. Mary’s!