We are community advocates and fruit tree stewards. Our mission is to increase awareness that non-commercial tree fruit is a valuable social and economic resource. We encourage community members to participate in:

1) reducing hunger by donating otherwise wasted, table grade fruit to hunger relief agencies 2) making good use of surplus #2 tree fruit not suitable for direct consumption 3) improving and expanding our regional fruit tree inventory to increase the supply of valuable fruit

Then:

It all started about 30 years ago when we had fall cider parties in our county neighborhood full of kids. We’d scout out sites with unpicked apples and ask the owner’s if we could pick them for our cider-making. Almost always, the response was “take all you want- I’m so glad someone will use them.” They had no idea the fruit was valuable to anyone! Our cider parties were community-building events we looked forward to every fall.

In 2021, several of us volunteered as Park Stewards with the City of Bellingham. We performed severe restoration pruning on the 65 neglected heritage fruit trees in three Bellingham Parks. We continue to do maintenance pruning and replace lost trees in the orchards. No one had harvested the fruit before, because the City had no idea the fruit was valuable to anyone. They allowed us to harvest the fruit for the Food Bank. That sparked the idea for the more comprehensive, all-volunteer nonprofit, NW Fruit Rescue, to harvest surplus tree fruit from both public and private sites.

Now:

Today, NW Fruit Rescue volunteers harvest and distribute surplus fruit that would otherwise go to waste: the table grade goes to hunger relief agencies and the #2 grade goes to a local cidery, producing a nominal income for our operations. When asked about picking the surplus fruit, owners overwhelmingly still respond with “take all you want- I’m so glad someone will use it.” They had no idea the fruit was valuable to anyone.

NW Fruit Rescue is increasing local awareness that the thousands of neglected and underutilized fruit trees in our region are a valuable and revered resource, worthy of support from all of us to restore and maintain them for the greater good.

With our community partners, we are providing hands-on workshops to teach techniques for severe pruning, fruit tree maintenance and grafting new orchard stock and replacement trees in heritage orchards.

The Future:

We’re just getting started. This first year was a learning experience to see how much fruit is available, how long it takes to harvest, and the practicality of actually getting it picked and distributed. Our core group of dedicated volunteers is growing, and all signs are positive. We will continue supplying the whole, table grade fruit directly to the hunger relief agencies, increasing local food equity, security and sustainability for those in need.

Because 50% or more of the fruit from non-commercial trees is #2 grade, we will also develop a nonprofit fruit processing facility to bring in paying jobs and sales revenue from value added products like juice for cideries, apple sauce, apple butter, fresh juice for market, dried fruit, fruit leather, etc., etc., as well as offering processing services to individuals and businesses. It will be nice to have a revenue stream that will reduce or eliminate the need for grants and donations. Something of a small scale venture philanthropy enterprise with all the profits benefiting charity. Think Goodwill and Benedictine monks.

NW Fruit Rescue will expand our educational workshops to increase the knowledge base in our region for stewarding healthy new trees, preserving our aging heritage trees, and promoting more fruit of better quality. We envision training individuals and groups as a “Pick and Prune” network of independents that pick at their own sites and operate at the own pace, while pruning and maintaining selected trees.

After the program is well established and we have experienced our share of “lessons learned”, we will offer the NW Fruit Rescue “road map” to other regions where surplus fruit is underutilized.

And I think we should celebrate with a community cider party every year, too!

Sincerely, Steve Gaber, Director 360-927-1768