A “really good peach person” working at home can can about 12 quarts of peach halves in an hour. Community leaders from Arvada, Golden and Lakewood put up 2,133 cans of peaches in less than four hours Sept. 21 during a leaders’ night project at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ cannery in Aurora.
That’s about 5,500 pounds of fresh peaches, all of which went to local food banks and nonprofit organizations.
About 60 volunteers were packed like sardines into the cannery, donning hairnets, plastic aprons and gloves to deal with the fruit. They watched a video about the process and received brief instructions for the evening.
“If you get dizzy, walk away from the station,” they were told by a church member. “Don’t fall into the peaches.”
Nearly all of the Arvada City Council members were there; as were a councilman, the city manager and deputy city manager from Lakewood; a councilman from Edgewater; and a councilwoman from Golden. Also in the group were Jefferson County and state Legislature officials, as well as local and county candidates.
All were invited to the evening’s canning project by members of the local Latter-day Saint congregations. Officials from Wheat Ridge were unable to make it.
“We’ll have about 10 of these leaders’ nights this year,” said Richard Clark, cannery manager. “Next year we’ll have 20 because the churches and the communities want more.”
At each leaders’ night, the invited officials get to choose the recipients of the goods they can, which could be soup, fresh fruit, apple or pear sauce, honey or jam. Last weeks’ canned peaches were distributed among The Action Center, the Arvada Community Food Bank, the Golden Backpack Program and the Vietnamese Central Baptist Church Food Bank in Edgewater.
“We’re so fortunate to have this kind of support,” said Brad Rupert, an Arvada attorney who is chairman of the Arvada Community Food Bank board of directors. He was attending his second canning project.
“It’s actually fun,” he said. “And to see the pallets of food we take at the end of the night is amazing. It’s many thousands of pounds, and the impact for our program is huge. The demand for our food services is up about 30 percent month over month from last year.”
Lakewood City Manager Kathy Hodgson was a little nervous as she prepared to push prepared peaches into cans as part of the process. She was canning for the first time.
“I just don’t know how fast we’re going to have to move,” she said. “I know the evening will be long and messy, but I just wanted to be involved and help support my community.”
Arvada Mayor Bob Frie was relaxed because he’d been through a canning event last year.
“We did some kind of jam — strawberry, I think,” he said. “I got to use a gun to squirt the jam into bottles. This is a great opportunity to provide food for people who can’t afford it. It’s a chance to take a little time out of your day and do something nice for people.”