City Fruit Programs
Urban Fruit Harvest
Each year, with the help of about 50 volunteers and 4 paid staff, we conduct more than 100 fruit tree harvests throughout Seattle, collecting and donating more than 10,000 pounds of fruit to local nonprofits focused on helping hungry people in our community. This local, nutritious food is an essential resource that would otherwise go to waste. Instead it benefits the clients of food banks, shelters, meals programs, clinics and senior centers.
Classes & Workshops
Fruit trees are an economical, local food resource that, with the right care, can produce healthy fruit for many years. In 2012 we will partner with local nurseries to sponsor a series of free fruit tree care classes in north and south Seattle. Topics include pruning, grafting, fruit preservation, bee keeping, and organic pest prevention. We are also providing south Seattle residents with consultations on their own fruit trees and access to classes on fruit tree care.
Urban Fruit Tree Stewards
We partner with Seattle Parks & Recreation, the Seattle Office of Sustainability and the United Way to plant new fruit trees in urban spaces, care for existing fruit trees, and train volunteer orchard stewards. We currently work in nine Seattle Parks and five additional gardens/orchards and have developed a sustainable, volunteer-based steward program. We recruit and train volunteers, coordinate between the stewards and public sector agencies, and orchestrate systems for sharing the fruit grown on community properties.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
Urban Fruit Tree Stewards
Because of the success of our initial five parks, we are working with Seattle Parks & Recreation and the Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment to expand the program to four more parks, meaning that additional fruit trees on public land will be cared for and the fruit used instead of going to waste. Funding was provided by the Department of Natural Resources in collaboration with the USFS. The program will help build community around nine city parks, engaging neighborhood volunteers, as well as helping to feed those who can't afford to buy fresh produce. The success of the Park Orchard Steward project led to United Way support for a project to plant and/or care for fruit trees on community - but non-Park -- properties in south Seattle. So in 2012 we will expand to an additional five sites. In all , we will be helping to steward 14 urban orchards.
Expanding the Harvest
While we currently harvest about 112 fruit trees in the city, we know of more than 850 trees: a significant amount of local, healthy fruit is going to waste. We would like to expand our harvest to new neighborhoods so that we can capture and donate more fruit. Expanding the harvest also allows us to sell more fruit, contributing to the overall sustainability of harvesting urban fruit. Finally, since experience has shown us that it is cost-effective to employ people to harvest the fruit, expanding the harvest would allow us to provide more jobs, especially to non-English speaking refugees (who were often farmers in their country of origin). To do this requires additional funding and capacity.