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Free avocados! Thousands of them! Get them in FDR Park.

Sharing Excess, a Philadelphia nonprofit that distributes surplus food, has 380,000 avocados to give away.

Avocados will be available by the case at the giveaway by Sharing Excess.
Avocados will be available by the case at the giveaway by Sharing Excess.Read moreCourtesy of Sharing Excess
    by Michael Klein
    Updated 
    Published 

When life gives you avocados, you make guacamole.

When life gives you 380,000 avocados, you give them away.

Such is the case at Sharing Excess, a Philadelphia nonprofit that distributes surplus food, which came into a recent windfall of the fruit grown in Central and South America.

» READ MORE: All about Sharing Excess, which fights food waste

Sharing Excess will give away 230,400 avocados on 60 pallets, each containing 80 cases of 48 avocados, at FDR Park at 20th Street and Pattison Avenue in South Philadelphia. Hours will be noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 19 and Thursday, Oct. 20, and starting at noon Friday, Oct. 21.

There will be no limit, said Sharing Excess founder Evan Ehlers. “This is all trust-based,” he said. “Our volunteers will ask, ‘How many do you need?’ If someone says, ‘I’m going to feed my entire block, we’re going to believe them.”

Besides the public giveaway, two additional truckloads, containing a total of about 150,000 avocados, will be given to local food banks such as Philabundance and Share Food Program, Ehlers said. The Tuttleman Foundation and Beast Philanthropy were contributing to the giveaway effort.

Ehlers said he could not explain the windfall. Avocado prices and supplies have varied wildly, especially this year. Mexico had a shortage earlier in the year because its production was off. Prices fell in July as Mexico stepped up growing, while California, Peru, and Colombia added to the supply, according to the trade publication The Produce News.

The giveaway avocados are now in various stages of ripeness, Ehlers said.

How about a recipe for avocado toast? Or salsa guasca?