NOGALES, Arizona — A steady stream of vehicles, with most of the drivers wearing face masks, pulled into Rio Rico High School on Friday morning.
Volunteers, covered with face masks and using gloves, loaded boxes of produce into the backseat or the trunk of each vehicle.
Once finished, volunteers raised their hand, the signal that allowed organizers to see when all of the vehicles lined up in the school's parking lot had received their food donation. It was the cue to clear them out to make way for more vehicles.
As they left, grateful drivers waved at volunteers. Others rolled down their windows long enough to say "gracias" before taking off.
By 11 a.m., the more than 50 volunteers, nearly all of them employees of the Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District, had handed out all 800 boxes of produce at the high school.
Several miles south, at a second distribution point in Nogales, community volunteers handed out 700 more boxes of donated fresh produce.
"We're helping our own people here. It's our community, we have to take care of it. We have to take care of each other," said Maria Santa Cruz, a volunteer. "That's what we do. That's Nogales for you: we take care of each other."
The donations have filled a large gap in the community. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing stay-at-home orders left thousands of families in Santa Cruz County without work and a source of income.
Even before the hardships brought by the new coronavirus, Santa Cruz County, located on the U.S.-Mexico border, was already the poorest in southern Arizona.
A quarter of its 46,000 mainly Mexican-American residents live in poverty, according to U.S. Census data. That's far above the state's average of 14% and the third-highest rate in Arizona, just behind Navajo and Apache counties.
As a result, requests for food assistance in Santa Cruz County have increased in recent weeks, according to the regional food bank, as families struggle to find ways to keep themselves fed.
"There's no reason for people here in Santa Cruz County to be going hungry, especially for produce," said Raymond Sayre, the county's director of emergency management.
Sayre coordinated Friday's produce distribution sites at the request of county leaders, working jointly with the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona and a number of other community groups and businesses.
"What we're looking (at) here is kind of a surge or a surplus of product that really is beyond what the Community Food Bank can handle operationally," he added. "So let's decompress them, do outreach to the community and then people that need it simply pick it up here today."
Distributors of imported Mexican produce, the main industry in Nogales, donated the produce that volunteers handed out Friday. The boxes included items such as romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and lemons.
Efrain Trigueras manages the produce donations for the Community Food Bank. He said the number of people stopping by the food bank has spiked dramatically since the pandemic. And while it's plateaued in recent days, it still remains higher than normal.
"The first couple weeks, it was every day, new people," he said. "For the resource center, we normally see 150 people (each day), now we're seeing 200, 170, 180, so the numbers are up high."
Since Gov. Doug Ducey issued stay-at-home orders in March, the food bank has organized four distribution events in Santa Cruz County. They've distributed seven truckloads of produce so far. That's the equivalent of about 245,000 pounds of produce, Trigueras said.
The deployment of 30 Arizona National Guard members to Nogales has been critical, he added. They've been sorting and boxing up produce non-stop so that it is quickly ready for distribution.
"For us in the produce operation, it's phone call after call, people asking if there's gonna be more," he said. "Even the surrounding areas, we've been providing more produce."
In addition to Santa Cruz County, the Community Food Bank has shipped truckloads of produce to communities throughout southern Arizona, such as Sierra Vista, and to the Pascua Yaqui tribe.
They've also been sending produce to tribal communities impacted by COVID-19 in northern Arizona, including the Navajo and Hopi nations. Trigueras said they're preparing a third delivery in the coming days.
The donations have made a big difference for many residents in Santa Cruz County.
Michael Garcia drove Friday to Rio Rico High School with his wife. He said he's thankful because they live on limited income and didn't have much money for food.
"We're retired, and the (pension) amount we receive is so small," he said in Spanish. "So if this type of help exists, we have to take advantage."
Celia Dietrich works at the Santa Cruz Valley school district. The district has kept her on the payroll, but her husband stopped working in March because of the pandemic. Friday was the second time they picked up produce at a distribution event.
"The Community Food Bank has just been a total blessing," she said. "We've been helping our neighbors and my mother in law, who's 92. ... With my husband being out of work since March, it's just been huge."
Have any news tips or story ideas about the U.S.-Mexico border? Reach the reporter at rafael.carranza@arizonarepublic.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RafaelCarranza.
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