Clean up your yard and feed a stranger
By Lauren Hudgins
Californians, especially new arrivals, can hardly wait to plant or harvest fruit trees in their yards, but sometimes even old-timers get more than we bargained for. Can’t keep up with that impressively productive (and perhaps messy) plum or orange tree? Reduce waste, share the bounty with those in need, and get a tax deduction in return. When you register your trees with L.A.-based Food Forward, they will schedule a group of volunteers to harvest your extra tangelos, grapefruit, Valencia and navel oranges, kumquats… whatever you’ve got that you can’t use. Their Backyard Harvesting Program picks from private trees and distributes the fruit within 48 hours to more than 50 nonprofit receiving agencies in Southern California, including underserved schools, gay and lesbian elder houses, and organizations that support the mentally disabled, reaching up to 40,000 people each month. If you’d rather do your own harvesting, they’ll even lend or sell you a kit that includes a citrus picker, pruning shears and protective gloves.
Food Forward’s “fruitanthropy”—picking, donating or distributing fruit for humanitarian purposes—also has a gleaning program for leftover produce at the Santa Monica, Hollywood, Studio City, Mar Vista, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Larchmont, West Hollywood, Culver City and Torrance farmers markets. The Farmers Market Recovery Program conveys an average of 15,000 pounds of produce per month to the same nonprofits.
Several harvesting and gleaning events are held each month, with the largest coming up in April, when up to 400 volunteers gather to comb through the old orchard at Cal State University Northridge. In the past this one-day event has yielded more than 4,500 pounds of fruit. Wanna pick? New volunteers are always welcome, www.foodforward.org.
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