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Lettuce Link, the group that connects Seattleites with extra fruit on their trees with volunteers who harvest them and deliver them to food banks, is having an orientation meeting for volunteers on Tuesday, June 30th from 6:30 – 7:30 pm at Solid Ground (1501 N. 45^th St. Check their web site for additional orientation times in Phinney / Greenwood, Ballard, Capitol Hill and more).

Some more info via Barb Burrill:

In 2008, 14,000 pounds of pesticide-free plums, pears and apples were delivered to more than 63 different community organizations including food banks, meals programs, shelters, low-income apartment complexes, programs for children and youth, and senior facilities.  Without the coordinated efforts of the fruit tree harvest project volunteers, much of that fruit would have fallen to the ground and rotted.

HOW IT WORKS

Volunteers are needed to do the following tasks:

• “Scout” trees in their neighborhood to see if they are ripe before sending volunteers to harvest
• Harvest at scheduled work parties
• Be on-call to harvest fruit in your neighborhood (An e-mail will go out to the volunteers in a particular neighborhood that a tree is ripe.  Volunteers who are available will make arrangements for picking)
• Provide garage storage for ladders, picking buckets, and/or harvested fruit
• Deliver harvested fruit to food banks, meal programs and low-income apartments
• Meets with staff at recipient organizations to determine how to best serve their needs when donating fruit

If you’ve got a pesticide-free apple, pear or plum tree for donation, contact the Seattle Tilth Garden Hotline at (206) 633-0224 or [email protected].  The Garden Hotline does the initial intake for trees, and then sends the information over to Lettuce Link.

Nicole Brodeur of the Seattle Times recently ran a very well-written article on Lettuce Link as well. Worth a read.