How do you like them apples?
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/08/2022 (1231 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
In a yard on Queens Avenue, a pair of pickers look up to the tree tops, searching the higher limbs for apples that they haven’t already managed to reach.
One of them is atop a step ladder, the other on the ground — both are using a special fruit-gathering tool with an extended handle that allows the pickers to reach distant branches.
Several buckets of ripened apples line the ground near the tree before being taken way.
It’s August, and for the volunteers with Fruit Share Brandon that means it’s harvest time. For the next few weeks, the organization is recruiting extra hands as the summer wanes and fall beckons on the horizon.
“I’ve had a shift in volunteers, and I don’t have as many as I normally do,” said Fruit Share co-ordinator Kathy Bruederlin after a morning of picking apples in the sunshine on Wednesday.
It has become an annual occurrence for many residential homeowners all over the city that allow teams of volunteers to come into their front yards, backyards and farm yards to pick fruit that might otherwise go to waste on the ground.
“It’s about sharing food is what it is,” Bruederlin said.
The program, which has been operating in Brandon since 2013, works by partnering volunteer pickers with local growers who have fruit trees and vegetable gardens with extra produce that they can’t use or would like to give away.
After the fruit is picked by volunteers, it’s shared in equal thirds between the growers, the pickers and local charities. Over the years, these have included Samaritan House Ministries, Teen Adult Challenge, Helping Hands Centre, the Friendship Centre and Prairie Oasis Centre.
“We just finished the raspberries, and did six to seven picks of raspberries,” Bruederlin said. “Now we’re starting into the apples.”
No extra equipment is required for volunteers to participate; Fruit Share Brandon has all the buckets, ladders and tools necessary. All they need is the extra hands.
Should anyone wish to reach Fruit Share Brandon to make a donation of either fruit or vegetables, or volunteer their time to pick, contact Bruederlin by phone at 204-727-7857 and leave a message.
» mgoerzen@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @MattGoerzen
