Mission and History
City Fruit’s mission is to harvest and steward urban fruit trees to support sustainable and equitable access to fruit.
City Fruit started in 2008 when founder Gail Savina organized volunteers interested in trying to redirect Seattle’s surplus fruit from waste. Back then, many people then did not know how to go about sharing surplus fruit, and community members were not aware that they could harvest from public orchards. City Fruit began to build its community by harvesting and sharing fruit with all! Today, we are still passionate about engaging the community in the stewardship and harvest of fruit trees as a sustainable food resource.
Today, we annually harvest ~30,000 pounds of quality fruit from residential fruit trees and public orchards. This fruit is distributed to over 30 food banks, meal programs, schools, and community organizations.
Our hope is that these fruit trees can continue to provide food for future generations.
Not from the Seattle area? Check out the National Gleaning Project’s map of different food justice and gleaning organizations across the country!
Core Organizational Goals
- Join people together in celebration of hyper-local fruit.
- Contribute to the growth of our local, community-driven food system.
- In partnership with community, co-design education and skill-training opportunities related to urban agriculture.
- Promote the stewardship and care of our urban fruit canopy year-round.
Land Acknowledgement
As stewards of various orchards and hundreds of fruit trees in Seattle, all of us at City Fruit acknowledge our privilege in being able to live, work and play on the unceded traditional lands of the Suquamish, Duwamish, Nisqually, Snoqualmie, and Muckleshoot tribal communities. We respect and are learning from the traditional foodways of Coast Salish peoples, and envision our work in food access as a step towards a food system that is led by the people, for the people, and is accessible to all.
Click here to learn more about the traditional lands you are on.