Wildsight is hailing another successful year for its Apple Capture program as volunteers harvested 2,184 pounds of apples in Cranbrook and Kimberley.
Olivia Gauthier, Wildsight Program Coordinator says volunteers played a vital role in the success of this year’s harvest.
“There were lots of trees and the community came through to help us out, I wouldn’t have been able to do all of this by myself. I want to give a shoutout to everyone who came and helped, even doing it on their own time,” said Gauthier.
“The Kimberley Health Centre let us use their facility at the food recovery to store all of our apples.”
Gauthier says she was pleased to see how readily community members got involved with the Apple Capture Program.
“It’s really exciting to have the community involved and coming to do the apple press and seeing the little kids learning how to do it so early in their life,” said Gauthier.
“Whether it was picking the apples or making juice, everyone loved being involved and meeting new people.”
All of the apples harvested around both communities were used and donated.
“We got about 195 litres of juice, you can imagine what that looks like. I had a lot in my house,” said Gauthier.
“We donated a lot to the Food Recovery program in Kimberley. We wanted to say thank you for letting us use their facility to store our apples.”
Even the waste product has some use in agriculture.
“We also gave 100 per cent of the waste – like the apple mash from making juice and apples that weren’t edible – to farmers to feed their livestock,” said Gauthier.
“That was about 852 pounds of waste we were able to divert from compost.”
Widlsight’s Apple Capture Program helps people keep their fruit trees maintained if they are unable to do it themselves.
“We really took priority of helping those who may not be able-bodied to pick their own apples. We wanted to make them a priority and help those people out,” said Gauthier.
“This also helps minimize the amount of wildlife attractants. We have a lot of bears in our area, they’re cute, but not when they’re leaving a mess in your yard.”
Including this year’s harvest, Wildsight volunteers have collected over 10,000 pounds of apples in the last four years.
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