Help City Fruit harvest tree fruit that would otherwise go to waste.
Do you love apples, pears, plums and other tree fruit? Now is your chance to help get that fruit off the tree and to people who need it.
Join the Great Seattle Fruit Harvest. Each year the nonprofit group City Fruit mobilizes volunteers to harvest fruit from people’s backyard trees, P-patches and public orchards. And they would love your help.
You can take part in a number of events coming up in September. Here are some of the events on the schedule:
- Sept 9, Cider Press at Museum of History and Industry
- Sept 12, Neighborhood Harvest Night at Ballard P-patch
- Sept 16, Festival of Fruit and Pie Contest at Piper’s Orchard in Carkeek Park
- Sept 13, 20 and 27, Ride-along Harvest with City Fruit harvesters
- Sept 18, Neighborhood Harvest Night in Queen Anne
- Sept 23, Harvest fruit from local Seattle orchards
Check out the complete calendar here.
You can also mobilize your neighbors to pick local fruit with help from City Fruit volunteers. Volunteers from City Fruit will help organize, pick, record and deliver the fruit from your neighborhood fruit trees. Find out more here.
If your company, team or organization is looking for a volunteer opportunity, City Fruit will organize a group harvest. Find out more here.
City Fruit’s community impact
City Fruit is having a big impact in the community. Last year volunteers harvested 55,000 pounds of fruit. It was the biggest harvest ever, and a 55 percent growth over 2015.
In 2016 City Fruit donated 30,000 pounds of fruit to food banks and partners, at a value of $60,000. It sold 3,000 pounds to restaurants and businesses such as Full Tilt and Dahlia Bakery. It diverted 97 percent of the fruit harvested.
City Fruit also works to educate the community about caring for fruit trees. In 2016 it taught 22 workshops, reaching over 300 neighbors. Over 650 volunteers worked on harvesting, education and tasks such as pruning public fruit trees. See the organization’s annual reports here.
If you cannot volunteer to harvest fruit but would like to support City Fruit’s work, you can donate here.
