As we enter into the holiday season, the City Fruit team would like to express a wholehearted thank you to our amazing and committed volunteers! This year, 153 community volunteers supported our work in both private and public orchards across Seattle, contributing over 1,281 service hours. Together, our work this year has supported local orchardists in caring for the trees in several of Seattle’s public orchards, including McAuliffe Park, Linden P-Patch, Brandon St Orchard, Angel Morgan P-Patch, Meridian Playground Orchard, Piper’s Orchard, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Marra Farms, City Soil Farm, and Danny Woo Community Garden.
To our volunteers that helped with pruning and mulching, thank you for laying a strong foundation for healthy and fruitful trees. To the volunteers that joined us in the implementation of pest management strategies like bagging and netting of fruit, thank you for helping us to save Seattle’s apples! To the many volunteers that helped us harvest, distribute, and process fruit for jam-making, thank you for not only helping us to harvest over 38,000 pounds of hyperlocal fruit, but for helping us explore new ways to share fruit with our community and divert excess fruit from waste. Thank you as well to the volunteers that helped us plant new fig trees at YES Farms and the Rainier Beach Learning Garden, and to the volunteers that supported the planting of the new cherry, apple, pear, kiwi, and fig trees that represent our first new orchard–the High Point Orchard in West Seattle! Without our volunteers, the work of this year–and its promises for the future–would not have been possible.
City Fruit also extends a special thank you to City Fruit’s 2020-2021 Master Fruit Tree Steward (MFTS) cohort, Andy, Tamara, Will, Andrew, Katie, and Marcia. In addition, the City Fruit team would like to share a huge thank you to our 2021 Neighborhood Ambassadors, Jaime, Olivia, Meredith, Shannon, and Jennifer, for their spirited contributions to the harvest this year! Together, these two City Fruit cohorts contributed almost 200 hours of service to our community food system.
As we close this year, we are looking forward to the many opportunities that 2022 holds! To check out volunteer opportunities, please click here! For any volunteer groups interested in working with us, please reach out now! Planning with us at least three weeks in advance allows us to better connect your group with an opportunity. Lastly, if you know of a community group or community space that is looking for support caring for existing fruit trees or is looking to plant new trees, please contact Tiare at [email protected]. Thank you!