Finding the fruit hidden in our city

Overview:

Have you ever noticed beautiful fruit trees in your neighborhood that go unpicked, the fruit falling to the ground going to waste and thought, there has to be a better way!

There is a better way! A non-profit called Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton (OFRE), sends teams of volunteers to homeowners in Edmonton who have registered their fruit tree with the organization. The harvested fruit is then shared equally four ways between: homeowners, fruit pickers, charities, and OFRE.

What began as a simple idea to prevent fruit from going to waste has blossomed into an organization that is dedicated to educating Edmontonians about local fruit. OFRE strives to teach people how to: pick fruits, take care of fruit trees, and preserve the harvest, as well as to create opportunities for learning about the types and varieties of fruit that grow in Edmonton. The city of Edmonton is in a zone 3 growing area, and many people don’t realize what a diversity of fruits can grow here. OFRE volunteers have rescued: plums, apples, raspberries, rhubarb, Saskatoon berries, crabapples, and pears! This fruit benefits communities, families, charities, and helps homeowners share their bounty and make sure that their fruit doesn’t end up in the landfill.

OFRE is in its 3rd year of operation and has been unable to keep up with the demand due to the steady growth in popularity of our service. In 2009 we had 100 requests from homeowners to pick their fruit. By 2010 our fruit pick requests had grown three-fold to 335 requests, and by 2011 we received 597 requests from home owners! Wow, that’s a lot of fruit that could be shared with the community!

The steady growth in requests shows that there is a strong interest from Edmontonian’s wanting to share their locally grown fruit with people in their community.

OFRE needs your help! With the steady growth in requests for fruit we have been unable to keep up with demand as a volunteer run operation. Much of the fruit ripens in a short span of time (July – October), so one of the biggest challenges for us in rescuing the fruit is finding proper storage space for the fruit to keep it fresh before it is processed and/or given to charitable organizations. OFRE is applying for the AVIVA grant in hopes of securing funds to meet our 3 core needs: space, staff, and processing equipment.

Space Needs: We would like to have an office space for 2 staff members (Director and bookkeeper/administrator), a place where we can host educational workshops, which will help us meet our educational goals around fruit production, tree care, and growing local food in a zone 3 area. We hope that within this space we can develop a small lending library which would house books and resources about fruit production, canning and preserving equipment available for lending out to OFRE members. The cost of processing fruits is prohibitive for some families and lending the equipment out would enable more people to preserve and savour the local harvest longer. OFRE also needs fruit storage space! One of our biggest roadblocks in picking more fruit is a lack of places to store it before it can be processed. OFRE hopes to use some of the finding to purchase/build a commercial refrigerator/freezer space for storing fruit at our location.

Staff Needs: OFRE needs funding to hire staff to: coordinate picks, develop training sessions and materials for our volunteer fruit captains, develop educational sessions on canning, preserving, and coordinating with fruit growing organizations for hosting tree care and fruit production workshops for our fruit growers, maintain the database, website, and act as a representative for OFRE at local events.

Processing Equipment: OFRE needs funding for equipment to: process a higher volume of fruit, host more canning workshops and to be able to lend out the equipment to members.

OFRE ran a pilot project in 2011 selling fresh-pressed pasteurized apple cider, jams, jellies, syrups, and fruit butters at local farmers markets. All products were made my OFRE volunteers. Our goal was that this was to help OFRE generate funding while also teaching volunteers how to can and preserve. Each volunteer got to keep a portion of the products made at the processing events and they gained preserving skills through participation. The products were very well received at the local markets. There is great interest from consumers wanting to eat locally made foods and support our organization. We have even had some of our fruit growers come the farmers market to ask which jars might contain their cherries or pears! OFRE hopes to generate a significant portion of revenue to cover annual costs and work towards a sustainable non-profit business model

We love rescuing fruit and teaching people who to preserve the harvest so they can enjoy it all year long! We have lofty goals, have proven accomplishments, and have a solid plan for the future. Please vote for us!