St. Mary’s Food Bank loads fridges at low-income Phoenix housing project

PHOENIX — Refrigerators at a low-income Phoenix housing project are full again thanks to a Valley food bank, days after storms knocked out power and caused food to spoil.

On Friday, St. Mary’s Food Bank brought lots of items to Washington Manor, near Seventh and Van Buren streets.

St. Mary’s president Tom Kertis said 200 seniors got to choose from a variety of items – including fresh produce.

“Everything from tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, grapes,” he said. “We have eggs, milk, cheese.”

Kertis said the affected apartments lost power during Tuesday’s storms, and all perishable food spoiled.

Ernie Rodgers moved to Washington Manor last year. He said he was grateful for the delivery.

“I think it’s awesome because they’re doing it in the building,” he said. “Normally, (if) you deal with the food bank, you’re outside in the heat – so, this is a nice change of pace.”

The food bank could relate to the residents, having experience a similar outage.

“St. Mary’s lost power to our warehouse and distribution center this week, and we were fortunate that we didn’t lose a large amount of food,” Kertis said. “But this has been a difficult week for the Washington Manor residents.

“We’re happy to help them replace some of the food they lost.”

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