Take a look back at the first 10 years of City Fruit
By now you have probably heard that we are celebrating City Fruit’s 10th anniversary at the upcoming City Fruit Celebrates on October 25. It is a huge milestone for what started out as a grassroots effort by a small group of dedicated volunteers. They saw tremendous value in the fruit growing in the city and wanted to make sure it was put to good use. It was a simple yet powerful idea that brought so many of us together and has led us to make a significant impact in our community.
In 2008, Gail Savina was troubled by the sight of fallen fruit that was left to rot on the ground all over the city. Gail and a group of like-minded folks started meeting in the basement of her house and City Fruit was born. It was very much a grassroots, volunteer-driven effort from the beginning:
- The budget was minuscule with only expenses being minimal postage and printing costs.
- Outreach was done the old-fashioned way. Volunteers biked around looking for fruit trees and left City Fruit pamphlets in mail boxes of the houses that had fruit trees on the property.
- They kept track of every tree owner on little yellow post-it notes.
Pretty soon they realized harvesting fruit was only a part of the picture. Many tree owners didn’t know how to care for their trees, and much of the fruit was infested with preventable pests. Therefore fruit tree stewardship also became a part of the organization’s mission in addition to harvesting.
In the decade that followed, City Fruit has harvested over 250,000 pounds of fruit. 250,000 pounds of fruit. That’s quite an achievement for an organization with a very humble beginning! Today, in honor of our founders’ unwavering vision and dedication, we take a look back at the first 10 years of City Fruit.
