Posted by Snow in 
We all see rotting fruit falling from trees all the time but it’s part of our training and society manners not to intrude and mention that fruit is going to waste. Rotting fruit in the heat becomes a germ and bacterial risk. So why have we waited to find a way to save it?
Some truly green individuals are working at an intriguing sustainability crossroads: using e-mail, blogs, Facebook and Twitter to foster old-fashioned networks among their neighbors, or among like-minded people looking to make their world a little better.
The concept of unused fruit has not gone unnoticed. Urban fruit “harvesting” takes place when individuals observe natural resources like tree fruit or busg fruit going to waste because unmindful owners remain in ignorance it is going to waste. Thus far it has been somewhat underground, with online maps of urban fruit picking sprouting on green websites.
Fallenfruit.org is one way people can scout out free citrus fruits and bush boysenberries unwanted by owners but still good for eating. But other than some, he goes farther than that. Declan Walsh’ story tells it like it is.
In Glassell Park Hills, on her walks, Hynden Walch saw food going to waste in her neighbors’ yards, and she began running through ideas for how to use it.
It was the simplest of connections: fresh food that’s free or nearly so, and people to eat it. Soon he was getting cyber-involved. In the process, Walch has built a cooperative in which gardeners share their bounty, an idea that is quickly spreading.
Rick Nahmias established a group called Food Forward that has donated nearly 30,000 pounds of citrus fruit to food pantries this year.
“This is like ‘The Little Engine That Could,’ ” says Nahmias, a photographer, filmmaker and writer who has documented the lives of migrant workers. “To my great pleasure and astonishment, this has taken off.”
Nahmias says he had long wanted to gather a group of “food people” to do more than just eat together, and since Barack Obama’s election, he has felt “a real call to service.” Now, volunteers pick most Wednesdays and Sundays, on properties with a few trees to those with a few hundred.
“By placing the fruit in the box next to them, and knowing that box will be unloaded for someone,” volunteers grasp a powerful tie, he says.
Community spirit
And the camaraderie that’s apparent as volunteers work is breaking through to potluck meals and cocktail hours, and friendship, at a time when some of the participants say they feel a sense of disconnection and alienation in their city.
Elizabeth Dell, an independent filmmaker and Food Forward volunteer, says she believes in policy change but appreciates the tangible efforts of harvesting fruit.
“You understand the value of what you’re doing. You just picked 1,200 pounds of fruit. And we all know that within three calendar days that will be in the hands of people all over Los Angeles who really need it.”
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