City Fruit would like to express our immense gratitude to Boeing’s Employee Community Fund for their donation of $40,000 on October 22, 2021, which allowed us to purchase a 2022 Toyota Sienna hybrid minivan in June of 2022! This vehicle has been invaluable to our team this summer, giving us the capacity to transport hundreds of pounds of fruit at once, carpool with multiple staff and volunteers to and from harvests, reduce our carbon footprint, and save expenses on gas and transportation costs.
With this new van, we were able to transport multiple staff and volunteers to harvests in neighborhoods across Seattle, and to orchards and farms outside the city. We visited Canterberry Farms in Auburn four times this summer, transporting four staff at a time, while still having room for multiple flats of blueberries (we harvested 300 lbs of blueberries!). Additionally, we were able to transport hundreds of pounds of apples from harvest events at public orchards in Kirkland and Renton. At some of these harvest events, we incorporated cider pressing as an educational activity, and the van not only packed the press but all the crates of apples! This van has been essential to our ability to collaborate as a team, expand our large adult & youth volunteer harvest events, and harvest 24,000 pounds of fruit so far this season!
The ability to transport four harvesters, fit an 8ft ladder, and multiple crates of fruit in the van at once was incredibly helpful this summer, and has greatly increased our team’s capacity. We are so excited to use this van for many years to come! From all of us at City Fruit, thank you so much Boeing ECF for your generosity. We are so appreciative of your support!
