Archive for February, 2011

Plans for Fruit Share 2011

It is an exciting time for Fruit Share Winnipeg.  More fruit, more volunteers, more sharing are on the way for 2011!

As a result of meetings and discussions with people throughout the city, I’ve written several proposals to several funding sources to help coordinate the expansion of Fruit Share into 6 neighbourhoods that have expressed an interest.  Of course, the nature of funding grants means we have to wait to hear what kind of funding we actually get.  But, even without funding, Fruit Share 2011 is poised to grow and pick a lot of fruit!

Here are our plans:

  • continue to operate in Riverview/Lord Roberts with the support of the South Osbourne Urban Community Cooperative
  • expand into 6 new neighbourhoods with the support of  neighbourhood associations or groups:
    • Wolesely
    • Daniel McIntyre/St. Mathews
    • West Broadway
    • North Main
    • St. Vital
    • Spence Neighbourhood
  • hire a summer coordinator 
  • develop a “Guide to Backyard Fruit” for both online and in print
  • hold fruit preserving workshops for social and educational purposes
  • come up with a practical, easy, and irresistibly tasty method for managing thousands of crab apples
If all goes well and enough people volunteer to help out in their neighbourhood, I’m confident we’ll pick over 7000 lb of fruit this year.
Come on summer!

Growing Local Conference 2011

Had a fabulous time at the Growing Local Conference here in Winnipeg.  It was wonderful to hear about all the different initiatives going on throughout the province and learning lots of tips and ideas.

I had a chance to present the idea and experiences of Fruit Share at the conference as well.  I hope the result will be more interest from all parts of the city and/or province.  Fruit Share could work in any community with unpicked fruit and people interested in doing something with it.  And, we would gladly share all our administration tools (spreadsheets, blog, pictures, ideas, processes) with anyone from anywhere!  As we learned last year all it takes is a small group of volunteers with a big love for fruit and community.

Thanks Food Matters for a great conference.