TUBAC, AZ — Santa Cruz is one of the poorest counties in Arizona. There is a 54 percent poverty rate and 28 percent unemployment, according to Chris Ciruli, chief operating officer of Ciruli Bros. LLC, located in nearby Rio Rico, AZ.

These factors bring "huge" needs to help the county's children, Ciruli told The Produce News on May 4. He sat for a brief quiet moment before the golfers of the Fiesta de Mayo Weekend charity benefit Chris Cirulirolled in from a sunny morning on the links of the Tubac Golf Resort & Spa.

Ciruli's father, Chuck Ciruli Sr., in 1993 was on the founding board of the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Cruz County. The Ciruli family joins many other produce — and non-produce — companies of this Nogales area to support the Boys & Girls Club. In the beginning it took the Nogales Boys & Girls Club a year's work before the children could have a club building.

"A lot of people here live very fortunate lives. They feel it is important to give back to the community they live in," Chris Ciruli said.

The national Boys & Girls Club "won't give you a charter" if a start-up club is in a town with a population below 50,000, he continued. Nogales, then, is the only such club in the country in a town this small. Sandy Smith and her husband, Mike Smith, owner of Sigma Sales Inc., are among many local produce industry members who support the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Cruz County, AZ. Thus, it's up to volunteer leaders to support the club and its annual budget of $500,000.

This annual Fiesta weekend typically raises between $210,000 and $250,000 a year for the Boys & Girls Club.

On May 3, the event opened with a cocktail reception in Tubac resort's mission building, which was part of Otero family ranch in 1789. This ranch endured various wars and the Gadsden Purchase to become Arizona's largest cattle ranch. On opening night silent and public auctions to benefit local children gave way to a dinner under the brilliant stars of a warm Arizona night.

A May 4 golf tournament was to be followed on Cinco de Mayo with a four-hour Produce Carne Asada luncheon steak feed. Ciruli said the originator of the Carne Asada benefit event was Alberto (Beto) Maldonado of Apache Produce Imports LLC, located in Nogales. The two efforts eventually merged under the Boys & Girls Club benefit banner. Ciruli said 1,500 steaks would be served at the Tubac resort on Cinco de Mayo. Many members and employees of the produce industry appear for the fundraiser.

Sponsors of this event are not local produce companies. Ciruli said his customers, such as Pinto Bros. in Philadelphia, Arthur G. Silk Inc. in Chelsea, MA, and Nathel & Nathel Inc. in New York are among many produce distributors around the United States and Canada that support this charity.

Ciruli added that the Nogales customs broker association is also a major supporter of this and other Santa Cruz charities. Among other activities, the customs brokers buy the uniforms for local youth soccer and baseball teams and provide academic scholarship for at-risk students.

Ciruli emphasized that these scholarships are not for high school graduates to go to big schools. Instead, for example, they enable a child with a grade point average of 2.3 to go to school to be a mechanic.

Sandy Smith, the wife of Fiesta sponsor Mike Smith of Sigma Sales Inc. in Nogales, is a volunteer for the Fiesta weekend. She said the Boys & Girls Club in Nogales has volunteers in the club to check children's homework after school, in case no one at home would do so. The club volunteers also provide sack dinners to send home with those children who otherwise would not eat until breakfast the next morning.