/ Modified feb 25, 2025 2:48 p.m.

Harvesting Fruit for Better Health, Understanding and Friendships

Iskashitaa Refugee Network volunteers glean grapefruit, oranges and other fruit from Tucson-area trees

Harvesting fruit 2025 backyard Volunteers are essential for the Iskashitaa fruit harvesting program. They drive to residents' homes and haul away the produce to be used in the community.
Tony Paniagua / AZPM

One backyard citrus tree can produce hundreds of fruit in one season which can be overwhelming for many people.

Homeowners can't use such an abundant harvest, especially since friends and neighbors often have their own trees as well.

Enter Iskashitaa Refugee Network, a non-profit organization that offers a fruit-picking service as one of its programs.

Since its inception in 2003, tons of fruit - literally - have been shared with many other groups in southeast Arizona.

"Fifty percent of what we harvest, which people don't realize, we are donating to food banks, soup kitchens, shelters and tribes," says founder Barbara Eiswerth, Ph.D.

"The other fifty percent goes to organized and serving refugees such as Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Community Services and then refugee families directly," she adds.

Eiswerth says the name of the group comes from Somali Bantu refugees she had met when she founded the organization.

It means "working cooperatively together" and it continues to be relevant since volunteers are essential for the success of the harvesting program- from those who donate their fruit- to those who help pick it.

Eiswerth says the efforts combine different aspects of education, assimilation, sustainability and other benefits to all residents in the the community.

"It is a win-win for everybody. We need your fruit. One grapefruit tree is not too much or not too little," she says.

"And if we're going to put that water and loving land into those fruit trees, we for sure should be harvesting and getting that bounty from our backyards."

To find out more about donating your fruit, whether from one tree or multiple specimens, you can contact Iskashitaa for more information.

Harvesting fruit 2025 orange tree Volunteers are essential for the Iskashitaa fruit harvesting program. They drive to residents' homes and haul away the produce to be used in the community.
Tony Paniagua / AZPM

Harvesting fruit 2025 Jim and Sam Jim Feeney and Sam Schaible are two of several volunteers who were working at a backyard harvesting activity in February 2025.
Tony Paniagua / AZPM

Harvesting fruit 2025 volunteers and van Volunteers are essential for the Iskashitaa fruit harvesting program. They drive to residents' homes and haul away the produce to be used in the community.
Tony Paniagua / AZPM

Harvesting fruit 2025 Audace Audace Mbonyingingo is an asylum seeker from Burundi, Africa who joined Iskashitaa Refugee Network as a board member and volunteer in 2024. He says harvesting and sharing produce, along with other programs, are vital for the community.

Tony Paniagua / AZPM

Harvesting fruit 2025 Barbara Eiswerth Barbara Eiswerth, PhD, seen here with some of the produce that has been harvested or donated to Iskashitaa Refugee Network. The group moved to St. Mark's Presbyterian Church in Tucson several months ago.
Tony Paniagua / AZPM

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