News, Events, Volunteer Opportunities, Community and Environmental Projects
While I am not really able to talk about the community orchards location, as certain details still have to be worked out. Hopefully Ill have some really good news to share in a few months.
I do have a couple of projects that I have started that I feel significantly benefit the community. I have started a small group of fruit rescue volunteers, and would like to have it evolve into its own independent organization. With that being said we need volunteers, and people who would be willing to board to take leadership roles. If you haven't heard of fruit rescue organizations, there mandate is to harvest left over fruit and in turn donate a portion of that fruit back to local food banks and charities. If you or any one you know would be interested in such a thing please let me know.
Presently we are donating 25-50 pounds a week of locally picked apples to the Cochrane Food bank. That amount and the diversity of fruit will likely increase. As well we are donating as much as we can to the Cochrane Ecological Society. Last week we were able to provide about 65 pounds of apples. This year they have 8 injured and orphaned baby deer, amongst their rehabilitation animals. That really can take as much fruit as we can pick. I will be out picking again next weekend, and can use as many volunteers as I can get. We will be picking apples and pears from local fruit trees downtown Cochrane.
For people who dont have time to come out and pick. We are also looking for mountain ash or other small edible berries that people can pick from their own font yards, I can pick them up later. The Mountain Ash berries are for the Wax Wing Aviary at the Cochrane Ecological institute. As well we are accepting fruit and berry plants to donate to the Ecological society for a planting project. They are able to provide tax receipts.
We have also made a lot of progress on our community wild foods mapping project. As well as being a mobile app, it is a key tool for the fruit rescue organization, local fruit hunters, and establishing community fruit exchanges.
