Corey Loyd
In past years during the late winter and early spring, you may have seen a caravan of cars and carts winding through SaddleBrooke on Saturday afternoons; happy people stopping throughout SaddleBrooke to unload empty boxes at driveways, scurry into backyards, and return to their vehicles with full boxes of fruit. They are the SaddleBrooke Fruit Pickers (SB Pickers), a group of resident volunteers who pick fruit for donation to nonprofits, missions, food banks, and other community nonprofit food centers. The group of over 30 residents from SaddleBrooke and SaddleBrooke Ranch are on a mission: waste none of the spectacular fruit that grows in SaddleBrooke. And we want your fruit!
The SB Pickers will pick your fruit if you need help harvesting or would like to donate the bounty of your fruit trees to the community. We will set aside the fruit you would like to keep and will deliver the remaining harvest to local community food banks in Oro Valley, Tucson, Mammoth, and other locations. We also provide fruit to several local restaurants and food trucks and neighborhood “free fruit” boxes.
If you are a SaddleBrooke resident and have fruit trees that you are unable to harvest yourself or need help harvesting, or simply would like to donate the fruit to the Tucson community, please contact Dotti McKee via email at dottimck@gmail.com or by text at 703-795-6499 or Linda McAllen at mltaz1983@gmail.com or 317-883-2059.
And if you are looking to fill a couple of hours of your winter Saturdays with fun, friendship, and fruit as part of our volunteer team, please come join us. Pickers and deliverers are always welcome. We usually schedule picking on Saturdays from noon to 3 p.m. beginning in February until April. To join our volunteer group, contact Corey Loyd via email at gcoreyloyd@msn.com or by text at 907-227-1133 and we’ll put you on our volunteer list.