Casey Hamilton, founder of the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project, is having fun collecting fruit that is delivered to food banks to feed people who need it most. Photo by Keith Lacey
The Okanagan Valley is blessed with an abundance of food sources and there’s simply no good reason why less fortunate people should struggle to feed themselves, says the founder of a unique program that has helped feed thousands of citizens across the Okanagan.
Casey Hamilton is the founder and brainchild of the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project, which is currently in its fourth year of operation across the Okanagan Valley.
Hamilton, 34, is pursuing her Masters Degree in urban agricultural policy at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, while also working as the new executive director of the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project.
The whole idea behind the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project is to gather abandoned or unused fruit from growers and farmers across the Okanagan Valley and distribute the food to the less fortunate through food banks and community organizations, said Hamilton.
“Our mission is to collect food that would otherwise be abandoned or end up in local landfills and get it to the mouths of those who need it,” said Hamilton.
Thanks to a small army of more than 300 volunteers from across the Okanagan Valley, the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project has become a resounding success.
In its first year, volunteers collected and distributed 5,000 pounds of fruit and that number grew to 17,000 pounds in 2013. Last year, volunteers collected more than 37,000 pounds of food and the goal for 2015 is to try and reach 50,000 pounds, said Hamilton.
The food is distributed to food banks in Kelowna, Lake Country, Peachland and Penticton and more than 30 other community organizations, including Okanagan Boys and Girls Clubs, numerous drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres, numerous church groups and women and children’s safe houses.
Volunteers not only work with farmers and orchardists across the region to “organize picks,” but they also distribute all of the food to the food banks and community organizations, said Hamilton.
The Okanagan Fruit Tree Project recently added a new South Okanagan project coordinator named Deb Thorneycroft, which has resulted in the group offering its services to places like Kaleden and as far south as Okanagan Falls, she said.
One of Hamilton’s top priorities is to expand the project to help the less fortunate in the most southern and northern regions of the Okanagan Valley.
“I would have to say that my biggest priorities now that we’re pretty well established would be to work towards ensuring our long-term financial sustainability through stable funding sources and to expand the program further north and south,” said Hamilton. “I would really like to be able to hire a coordinator for the Oliver and Osoyoos area and also the Keremeos and Princeton region in the very near future.”
“We’ve grown the program quite substantially in four short years, but we changed our name this year from the Central Okanagan Fruit Tree Project to the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project because we want to be able to offer our services to residents across the entire Okanagan Valley.”
Since moving to Kelowna from Calgary nine years ago, Hamilton said she has become heavily involved in food policy decisions at the local level and could not believe that a region that produces so much amazing food could still have citizens who struggled to gain access to healthy and nutritional food.
While pursuing her studies at UBCO, she gathered six undergraduate students majoring in dietetics back in 2012 and they spent several months coming up with a plan to collect and gather much of the food that was being wasted across this plentiful valley.
They quickly discovered “so much food was going to waste” and this frustrated farmers and orchardists as well as those who work to help feed the less fortunate, she said.
“There were a lot of reasons so much food was being wasted,” she said. “Farmers couldn’t find enough workers, some of the owners of the orchards were just too old and couldn’t pick all the fruit, some went on vacation and only picked what they needed to make a profit.
“The bottom line is there was this abundance of fruit that was going to waste.”
Farmers and orchardists that get involved in the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project can keep up to 20 per cent of the fruit and vegetables picked by volunteers, she said.
When the apple harvest begins in late summer and early fall, there is so many apples being picked, distribution becomes difficult, so Hamilton works with her many partners with the various food banks and community agencies to travel to Kelowna to pick up bins of apples.
While the focus remains on fruit, there are some farmers donating vegetables to the project, she said.
The volunteers range “from couples with toddlers strapped to their backs during picks, right up to seniors … they come from all walks of life and backgrounds,” she said. “The common thing they share is they believe all citizens should have access to healthy, nutritional food regardless of their circumstances in life.”
Hamilton likes to stay involved and continues to “go on at least one pick per week,” but acknowledges more and more of her time is spent conducting administrative duties and trying to secure government grants and other financial support for the project.
Hamilton is deeply proud of the difference this project has made in helping feed thousands of less fortunate citizens from across the Okanagan Valley over the past four years.
“I just love it knowing we’re making an actual difference,” she said. “The attitude amongst everyone I deal with is basically ‘let’s get this done.’”
Farmers and orchardists across the region deserve most of the credit for wanting to contribute to the project and giving away large quantities of fruit and food they’ve worked so hard to grow, she said.
“We couldn’t do this without their help,” she said.
If anyone from Osoyoos or Oliver would be interested in expanding the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project to this region, they can contact Hamilton at 1-778-214-5664.
The organization also has a Facebook page at Facebook/OkanaganFruitTreeProject.
By Keith Lacey
