Article/Photos by Gail Savina
When Dave Beeman pulled up to deliver plums at the Rainier Food Bank early Wednesday morning, the line was already down the block. He waited as another dozen people got off the #7 and into the line—even though the food bank didn’t open for another two hours.
Across the city, food banks and meals programs are stretched to the breaking point as more and more people rely on them to eat. According to Richard Tupper at the Beacon Avenue Food Bank, they’re serving as many as 400-500 families each week.
Meanwhile, on streets and sidewalks throughout south Seattle, fruit falls to the ground and rots. Unlike planting a garden, owning a fruit tree is often unintentional. Many tree owners find that they have ‘inherited’ a fruit tree, and in late summer they are overwhelmed when hundreds of pounds of fruit ripen at once.
Community fruit harvests attempt to address this ‘disconnect’ between wasted food and hungry people. Organized by various groups throughout Seattle, fruit harvests connect people who have extra fruit with volunteers willing to pick the fruit and deliver it to food banks, meals programs, senior centers and others. To find a fruit harvest in your neighborhood, go here and visit “Harvest fruit”. To volunteer for harvesting or to request fruit donations in south Seattle, contact Gail Savina.
Map Your Fruit Trees! City Fruit is a new organization that promotes urban-grown fruit as a valuable community resource. Why let the 150 pounds of Bartletts from a medium-sized pear tree on Beacon Hill drop to the ground? Deliver them to a food bank, or share them with neighbors—or make pear butter.
At www.cityfruit.org, people can register their own fruit trees on a city-wide fruit tree map: raising awareness about Seattle’s extensive ‘virtual’ orchard is the first step in protecting it. Many people are waking up to the pleasure—and economic common sense—of canning fruit and making jam. City Fruit’s calendar provides a comprehensive overview of food preservation classes throughout the city. In south Seattle, see the Rainier Community fall catalog’s canning series.
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{ 9 comments }
What a great idea!
I second MarkB’s comment!!!!
Great idea. Feeding hungry people is always good.
In case anyone’s forgotten, this is the year 2009. Hunger and poverty should be a thing of the long distant past. Ever ask yourself who’s getting in the way of that happening?
City Fruit is a fabulous idea, a fabulous group of people! Check out the website, make a donation, map your trees, share your fruit!
http://cityfruit.org/
Cool Tool. There are some wild apple trees growing along the road in the green space on 42nd Ave S. near S Trenton. Would be great to see the fruit actually feed someone instead of just splattering on the road under the trees.
This is a fine idea.
There’s a European plum tree outside about to drop hundreds of prunes, along with their seeds, on the sidewalk. I take some to work and eat a few. But taking them to the food bank makes a lot more sense.
The Bartletts on my tree aren’t fit for the birds this year.
Thanks for posting this.
In my job, I get to see a lot of basements, mostly in the SE Seattle area (Needless to say, it’s not a glamorous position) and many times you will see an older electric stove in the basement that previous owners used for canning. Seattle was crazy about canning back in the day. City Light’s home ec ladies used to teach classes on it.
Personally, I’d be afraid to do it. But that’s just me. I’m afraid of lots of things. Probably because of all those basements….
Reminds me of the story of the boy who took great pride in spending all week gathering his sheep on the prairie, while the fence that holds them in falls over from deterioration.
The website only accepts information on certain types of fruit. There was no “other” category so now my Russian Mulberry is listed as an apple tree!
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