STEP 1.
Contact us with your fruit trees to be harvested. Fruit Squad Tree volunteers get official permission to audit and harvest the fruit, assess the health of the fruit tree, and estimate how many volunteers will need to be sent to harvest.
STEP 2.
Fruit Squad Pickers arrive at an agreed time and harvest your fruit. If you want to harvest it yourself, we can arrange to pick it up.
STEP 3.
The harvested fruit is then taken to DIVRS, where it is weighed and logged.
STEP 4.
The fruit then goes direct to DIVRS emergency releif food security and local parters services like Secondbite, Darebin Food Bank, The Salvos, or the ASRC, who supply it either whole or preserved to people in need.
Did you know….?
- that food security is an issue for many people in Darebin. Emergency relief agencies like Second Bite and DIVRS report that there are difficulties meeting the requests they receive to provide fresh, nutritious food to those in need.
- that there is a source of local, fresh fruit, located in private and public spaces that is going to waste – much of this found in backyards in orchard stock planted by previous generations
- that a good deal of this fruit is going to waste because some people may no longer be able to maintain the trees or pick/use the fruit, or more recent property owners may not appreciate the value of this urban fruit stock in terms of food security.
How the Darebin Fruit Squad is helping alleviate food insecurity in Darebin…
The main aims of the Darebin Fruit Squad are to collect excess fruit from households in the city of Darebin and to redistribute the collected fruit to people in need via Food Security organisations. We also aim to help to maintain the wealth of fruit trees that were originally planted with a view to feed future generations. Darebin is rich in its cultural and ethnic backgrounds and that is reflected in the huge variety of different fruit trees. The Darebin Fruit Squad hope to meet with community members who have knowledge and experience in caring for these fruit trees, many of whom are represented by the older generations who may no longer be able to harvest and maintain their trees, but very happy to lend their knowledge.
It has two main components:
- harvesting and collecting fruit from householders who contact the Fruit Squad offering their surplus fruit, and
- maintaining fruit trees, in return for their surplus fruit
The program not only makes use of a precious wasted resource to help those struggling to access fresh nutritious food but also to helps in more subtle ways like enabling skill sharing between householders and volunteers and fostering social connections and inclusion. the Darebin Fruit Squad is a proud member of the Darebin Food Harvest Network, a group of passionate Darebin community members who are working together on sustainable food initiatives and improving food security in Darebin.
