Community Group Seeks Fruit Picking Co-Ordinators In The Waikato

Community Fruit Harvesting, a group that collects and shares unwanted fruit from back yards around New Zealand with charities, is looking for co-ordinators to manage fruit picking in and around Hamilton and the Waikato.

Jeremy Briggs has been running Community Fruit Hamilton since September 2011, and would like additional co-ordinators to help share the responsibility.

The role involves collating and managing a database of fruit trees that are available for picking, and organising volunteer pickers when the fruit is ripe. The unwanted fruit is then delivered to charities including local foodbanks, night shelters, community houses and church groups as well as needy schools and early childhood centres.

“Co-ordinators can choose to start small by picking fruit in their street or through their school, church or other group,” says Jeremy. “Or if they have more time, they can manage a suburb or larger area. Every bit helps.

“Often fruit goes to waste when people are elderly or disabled and can’t pick fruit from their trees, or when orchard owners have an excess of fruit at the end of the season. Last year a number of very generous orchard owners offered us apples, citrus, kiwifruit and persimmons and we picked hundreds of boxes that went to schools and charities across the Waikato. Picking unwanted fruit and distributing it to organisations that help people who are struggling to make ends meet is enormously satisfying.”

As well as co-ordinators, Community Fruit Harvesting is also looking for more volunteers to pick fruit and deliver it to charity, for individuals and orchard owners to register their fruit trees to be picked and for people who can help to preserve fruit by bottling or making jams.

Plums, berries, nectarines and peaches are still in season, with apricots, feijoas, figs, persimmons and early season apples and pears ripening soon.

People interested in co-ordinating fruit picking in the Hamilton area, volunteering as a fruit picker, offering their tree with unwanted fruit or helping by preserving fruit, can email Jeremy Briggs on PickFruitHamilton@gmail.com or call on 07 929 2002 or 027 495 4352.

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About Community Fruit Harvesting

Community Fruit Harvesting is a registered charity set up to facilitate the sharing of fruit from our own back yards with charity. People with fruit they can’t pick or don’t want register their trees and volunteers pick the fruit and donate it to those that need it. The group was started in 2011 by Auckland North Shore resident Di Celliers, and currently operates in several cities and towns throughout New Zealand.

Like Community Fruit Harvesting on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PickFruitHamilton.

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