Okanagan Fruit Tree Project

The Okanagan Fruit Tree Project is a Registered Charity that operates in the Central Okanagan and Penticton area. We grow and harvest fresh produce which is then shared within our community. We do this through two projects:

Gleaning
Backyard fruit tree owners, orchardists, and farmers with food to harvest contact us and we organize our volunteers to go out and collect it! We harvest from fruit trees, nut trees, and vegetable plots. The harvest is then shared between our amazing volunteers, the home owner, and the rest is delivered to the community organizations we support in the Central and South Okanagan.

Community Farming
Community Farming
We farm a 1/2 acre plot in Kelowna. Our volunteers help plant, weed, and harvest vegetables such as onions, potatoes, carrots, beets, kale, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, squash and more! This bounty is then shared with community organizations in Central Okanagan and beyond.

OUR MANDATE

Promote local food security
Increase dignified access to healthy food for those in need
Protect and celebrate local agriculture
Reduce food waste
Celebrate agricultural history
Increase volunteerism
Provide opportunities to improve health by harvesting fruit

OUR HISTORY

For many years, members of the Okanagan community brought the issue of surplus food going to waste throughout the valley to the attention of the Central Okanagan Food Policy Council (COFPC). At the same time, the conversation also alluded to the many residents who go without enough food to eat on a daily basis. With this gap between excess food and rumbling stomachs, it only made sense to develop a means of recovery in our abundant community. From this, the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project was born in 2012, originally as a Food Action Project of the COFPC to share the bounty with those who need it the most. The project grew so fast, that in 2014 the OFTP became a non-profit society and transformed again in 2016 to become a registered charity!