Fruit Share Brandon just keeps on pickin’

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This article was published 13/08/2025 (226 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On a sunny Wednesday morning, the apple pickers from Fruit Share Brandon were hard at it — reaching high and plucking fruit from the trees in a backyard on the city’s North Hill.

All four volunteers were perched on ladders and eye level with the branches. Two of them were armed with a special fruit-gathering tool that had an extended handle, allowing them to reach even farther.

Each item from the fruits of their labour is donated, said Fruit Share co-ordinator Kathy Bruederlin.

“Anything that people want us to pick, we will come,” Bruederlin said.

“And when we’re finished, we fill up my van and I drive around Brandon to places like Samaritan House Ministries, the YWCA women’s shelter and a lot of the seniors’ residences. That way they can make things like apple crisp, pie or even freeze them,” she said.

Depending on the number of trees, the volunteers can pick up to a dozen pails of apples, which works out to be about 250 pounds per tree.

And by the end of the season, Bruederlin added, “We usually do about 13,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables and other stuff.”

The program has been operating in Brandon since 2013. It works by partnering volunteer pickers with local homeowners or growers who have fruit trees and vegetable gardens with extra produce that they can’t use or would like to give away.

So far this year, volunteers have picked rhubarb, raspberries and strawberries from people’s homes and gardens, Bruederlin said.

“We got 128 to 135 pounds of saskatoons this year,” she said.

As Wednesday’s volunteer pickers filled the buckets with apples and chatted happily amongst themselves, resident Richard McDonald looked on.

“I planted these trees in 1987,” McDonald said, adding, “There are two types of apples, but I forget what they are. I do this every year because I don’t want to see them wasted.”

The volunteers were very careful, but once in a while an “oops” could be heard as an apple fell to the ground.

As Rilla Dunkley climbed off the ladder to empty her bucket into a larger one, she said she has been helping harvest for almost 10 years.

Besides picking the fruit off the branches, she did a quick check and picked up apples that were on the ground.

“It’s just the feeling of community, I guess, and giving back,” said Dunkley.

“Food’s expensive, and the amount of people that have to utilize our food banks now is crazy. Instead of going to the landfill — going to waste — we can compost or feed farm animals. So, utilizing it all is one of the reasons why I like doing this.”

Sarah Mitchell laughed as she shared that even when she’s not on picking duty, she thinks about ways to find more fruit in her own neighbourhood.

“I look around and if I see a big tree that’s full, I will leave a note asking, ‘can I come and pick your tree?’” she said.

This mid-August harvest is the first of two for the apples, Bruederlin said. They’ll make the rounds in September for a different variety of apple — ones that are easily stored.

And over the next few days, Bruederlin said she hopes to get a call from a local producer about chokecherries and plums.

“I love doing this,” she said. “It’s a great way of building community in Brandon.

“Besides,” Bruederlin said as she looked around the yard, “you get to play outside. You get to pick fruit and climb trees. I used to love climbing trees when I was a kid, so this kind of works into it.”

No extra equipment is required for volunteers to participate. Fruit Share Brandon has all the buckets, ladders and necessary tools.

Bruederlin is always looking to expand her list of places to take produce, but she needs more growers to donate.

For more information about Fruit Share Brandon, to make a donation of either fruit or vegetables or to volunteer to help pick, call Bruederlin at 204-727-7857 and leave a message.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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