About City Fruit
A non-profit that facilitates fruit-sharing and promotes food justice in the Seattle area.
Urban fruit trees are a valuable community resource. City Fruit started in 2008 because tree owners did not have the avenues to share excess fruit and community members were not aware that they could harvest from public orchards. City Fruit helps tree owners in the Seattle area grow healthy fruit, provides assistance in harvesting and preserving fruit, promotes the sharing of extra fruit with neighbors, and works to protect public fruit trees.
City Fruit focuses on three main bodies of work. The first body is the harvesting and distribution process, where City Fruit picks around 40,000 pounds of fruit annually to share with the community through various avenues. The second body is fruit tree stewardship, where City Fruit provides year-round tree care to fruit trees on both public and private property to ensure a bountiful harvest. The last body of work City Fruit performs is education and community outreach. They work with the next generation of orchardists about food justice through workshops and programs from elementary youth to high school seniors.
“Seattle may be the only urban environment in the U.S. that can still boast having an extensive network of orchards containing an assortment of heirloom varieties planted by early settlers to the region.” Audrey Lieberworth, Seattle’s Orchards: A Historic Legacy Meets Modern Sustainability.