Positive News: Colman's Community Harvest

I've been meaning for the past six weeks or so to post a follow up to our Community Harvesting efforts in the south-end of the CD...and it seems with all the tough news of the last month, it's better than late than never for some positive neighborhood news.

We're thrilled to report back to the neighbors that our band of volunteers gathered over a ton of fruit that would have otherwise rotted just in our small neighborhood (Jackson to the Lid, 23rd to MLK). Of this, approximately half stayed in the neighborhood distributed to anyone who wanted it and a few of the local churches and the other half went primarily the the St. Mary's Food Bank.

In addition to the plums that seemed to be everywhere in August, we gathered pears, grapes and quince from eleven homeowners who donate the fruit from their trees.

While we did not get the canning and cider party together like we hoped, we're still pretty much feeling like we rocked it with the fruit harvest and are excited to do it again next year.

I have several copies of the Solid Ground's Guide to Starting Your Own Community Harvest if any of the other neighbors are interested. After chatting with several other groups in the city, I think there is a lot of community building potential in keeping the community harvest groups/harvest boundaries fairly small, but of course, there are many great resources to tap into here in Seattle.

For our neighbors in the CD who are interested in Community Harvesting, you are welcome to contact me at knoxg98111@gmail.com and I can get you one of these books and chat about how we got started down here in Colman, or you can contact City Fruit to learn more about urban fruit and gleaning initiatives in the city.