Portland Fruit Tree Project Celebrates 200th Harvest

Portland, September 15th.  Portland Fruit Tree Project marked an exciting milestone with a big multi-site urban harvesting event. There were four harvest sites and one team was entirely bike powered – a new harvest method for the nonprofit.

About half of the fruit was shared with the harvest volunteers – half of whom are low income themselves.

The event ended with a celebratory lunch while representatives from the NE Emergency Food Program & Urban Gleaners spoke about the impact the fruit from Portland Fruit Tree Project has on their organizations and the people they serve.

Since 2007 Portland Fruit Tree Project has brought together thousands of diverse Portlanders to harvest and distribute more than 100,000 lbs of fruit that would have otherwise gone to waste from hundreds of neighborhood fruit trees. 50% of fruit harvested by PFTP goes to local food pantries, and the rest goes to harvest participants, the majority of whom are living on low incomes. Since 2007 PFTP has provided fresh fruit to more than 10,000 low income families.

Portland Fruit Tree Project is a grass-roots non-profit organization that provides a community-based solution to a critical and growing need in Portland and beyond: Access to healthy food. By empowering neighbors to share in the harvest and care of urban fruit trees, we are preventing waste, building community knowledge and resources, and creating sustainable, cost-free ways to obtain healthy, locally-grown food. Because money doesn’t grow on trees… but fruit does!

“We organize people to gather fruit before it falls, and make it available to those who need it most. We register fruit and nut trees throughout the city, bring people together to harvest and distribute thousands of pounds of fresh fruit each year, and teach tree care and food preservation in hands-on workshops.”