Food: Backyard Gardens and Harvesting Backyard Fruit Trees

Overview:

****Mission**** The Mississauga Fruit Tree helps members in the community to access and share surplus fruits and harvest fruit in Peel from local backyard fruit trees and this bounty is divided between homeowners, volunteers and food banks. This fresh, organic fruit is diverted from becoming food waste. We work with community partners (food banks, churches, schools, social service agencies) to coordinate harvesting fruits for organized groups of low-income individuals.We also set up backyard vegetable gardens in residents homes for residents who have the space but don't have the time or the know how to do a vegetable garden with youth who have the time but don't have the space to grow.

****Food Waste Versus Hunger****

We have an abundance of fruit growing on trees in residential areas of Peel yet every year, thousands of pounds of this delicious organic food drops without being harvested. Meanwhile, many children and youth living on low incomes have limited access to fresh fruit, vital to a healthy diet.This project enhances local food security and provides opportunities for community members to work together towards a common goal.The current economic climate forces us to use all our resources especially all the tasty, fresh peaches,pears, apples, apricots and grapes.

****The Problem****

Malton, the small,geographically isolated suburb in northeast Mississauga, bordered by Brampton,Rexdale and Pearson International Airport is plagued with social problems. Malton's poverty is often obscured by its proximity to relative affluence of other parts of Mississauga but it is a poor neighborhood with low income families. The children of these families receive most of their food from one church-run food bank. The pantries of many food banks are stocked with packaged goods and caloric filler foods because those products are cheap and easy to ship and store, not necessarily nutritious.

****What The numbers say****

375,000 Ontarians turn to food banks every month; 40 per cent of those served by food banks are children. • Since 2008, we witnessed the closure of over ten major food processors and food manufacturing plants in communities across the province, the sum total of these closures meant an overall reduction in supply of one million pounds of food for Ontario’s food banks. • One in five food banks in Ontario do not have enough food to meet the needs of those they serve • 72.4 per cent of Ontarians turning to food banks do not have access to the required servings of fruits and vegetables.

****Community Spirit****

The harvesting of residential fruits goes far beyond food. The bringing together of youth and seniors (volunteerism) within the community to work together facilitates a cohesion of being part of the solution, an understanding of issues affecting thecommunity and provides a vehicle of information exchange between the different age groups. The seniors are able to give valuable information and mentor the young people in this kind of informal setting of picking fruits together as young people are more relax and thus much more receptive.