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Sacramento organization picks fruit to help feed those in need

Sacramento man harvests neighborhood fruit trees and gives the excess fruit to people in need.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — One Sacramento man is on a mission to save as much excess citrus fruit as possible — and you can help.

Matthew Ampersand is the founder of Sacramento's Find Out Farms, which he describes as "inquiry-driven urban agriculture."

ABC10 spoke with him recently while he was harvesting oranges off a tree at a South Sacramento home.

“These oranges are going to get shared with community members all over the county, so they'll probably go to Wellspring Women's Center and River City Food Bank,” Ampersand said. "Anybody who has a thriving fruit tree has that experience of having too much fruit for their household. And simultaneously, there's hundreds of thousands of people who are food insecure in Sacramento County. And a lot of those folks would really appreciate some nice, fresh, healthy food."

He started the Community Fruit Program last year. That’s where people in the Sacramento area essentially donate the fruit hanging on their fruit tree, then Ampersand and volunteers come out to harvest it and bring the fruit to people in need.

"I think anybody who lives in the area has walked down the street and seen fruit falling from a tree and wondered, 'Why is that fruit going to waste? I wish they could do something.' And I also wished I could do something. And I realized I could. So I did,” he said.

Last year, the program harvested a little over 10,000 pounds of fruit that would otherwise go to waste.

This year, “in 2022, we've diverted nearly 17,000 pounds of fruit. Our goal is to do 20,000 before the end of the year,” Ampersand said. “And then in 2023, our goal is to do even more than this year."

Chelsea Renneke volunteers with the Community Fruit program.

"I have gone and, like, brought a friend with me,” she said. “It was just, like, a fun day, you know? A fun couple of hours. So it's not too difficult. And if you aren't sure about doing something, maybe just don't do it, you know, like going up too high or something like that."

And now is the time to volunteer, Ampersand says.

"It's the most wonderful time of the year: it's citrus season!” he exclaimed “This is really when hundreds of thousands of pounds of citrus is ripe around Sacramento County."

ABC10 asked him about how frost impacts citrus fruit.

He said with a frost or even a light freeze, the citrus fruit will probably be okay. But a hard freeze-- he says 28 degrees or colder overnight-- and he gets worried. He said Sacramento could see that over the weekend.

Frost blankets or even those older incandescent Christmas lights that give off heat-- putting those in the tree can help save the fruit, Ampersand said.

Watch: 90-year-old Stockton woman shares 'missing' story after being found in Sacramento

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