Fruit Harvest & Distribution

Photo: Katie Campbell, KUOW

2012 proved to be City Fruit’s biggest harvest ever.  Between July and October we harvested a total of 18,414 pounds of edible fruit (and another 1,000 pounds of inedible fruit) from three Seattle neighborhoods:  Phinney-Greenwood, south Seattle/Rainier Valley corridor, and West Seattle.   The Community Fruit Tree Harvest, a program of Lettuce Link at Solid Ground, harvested another 13,200 pounds of fruit in Seattle, bringing the total Seattle harvest to more than 31,000 pounds in 2012.

City Fruit delivered fruit to 32 organizations that serve low income residents of Seattle.  These organizations, and their clients, were the direct beneficiaries of the harvest:

ACRS Food Bank, Angeline’s Shelter, Ballard Food Bank, Beacon Avenue Food Bank, Broadview Shelter, Centerstone Food Bank, Central Area Senior Center, Cherry St Food Bank, Columbia Health Center, Esperanza Senior Housing, Food Lifeline of Washington, Greenwood Food Bank, Greenwood Senior Center, High Point Youth Food Program, Hope Place, Jewish Family Services Food Bank, Little People Preschool, Mary’s Place Shelter, Medical Respite Homeless Shelter, Nicklesville Encampment, Providence Peter Clavell Senior Housing, Rainier Valley Food Bank, Salvation Army Food Pantry, Seattle Housing Authority, Silvercrest Senior Center, Southeast Seattle Senior Center, St. Martin de Porres Men’s Shelter, St. Mary’s Food Bank, Teen Feed, West Seattle Food Bank, West Seattle Senior Center, White Center Food Bank.

The total cost to City Fruit to harvest 18,000 pounds of fruit was $13,582: this is a reduction of $0.26 per pound compared to previous years ($0.74/lb in 2012, compared to $1.00/lb and more in previous years). We sold 4.6% of the fruit we harvested, generating $2228 in revenue.   Grants from the City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and the Horizons Foundation also provided support for the harvest, as did City Fruit memberships, donations and fund-raisers.

Many of the clients who receive our fruit are immigrants living in SE and SW Seattle.  This July, the state’s Food Assistance Program for Legal Immigrants cut benefits in half — cuts that will make it even more difficult for an estimated 30,000 people to access healthy food. In light of this, fresh local fruit becomes even more important.