Send your child to a grow your own nutrition camp in June. Soil Born Farms' education team is offering a series of summer day camps for children entering the 2nd to the 12th grades. The six-week-long day camps will run Mondays through Fridays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 pm, except for Fridays when the hours will be from 8:00a.m. to noon.
The day camps will be at the American River Ranch. And each day will focus on specific themes in nutrition and growing your own produce, including food distribution, flower bouquets for seniors and restaurants, healthy, nutritious cooking, American River watershed studies, art, and community service projects.
The summer day camps this year will enable participants to work with and learn from the Soil Born Farms staff and will connect the children and teens with educators, farmers, volunteers, and other members of the community. For details and/or registration information, email ggalante@soilborn.org. The day camps will be at the American River Ranch.
Soil Born Farms harvests unwanted fruit from neighborhood trees for donation to local food banks. Families that harvest together, de-stress together. See the website, Harvest Sacramento - Soil Born Farms.
For adults and families, Soil Born Farms' Harvest Sacramento project is in partnership with Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services. You are encouraged to organize harvests in your neighborhood with family, friends, co-workers, or service groups to harvest the trees in your backyard and your neighbor's yard, working together with your neighbor and forming a group of 4 to 1- people in your area to harvest excess fruit in a 10-block radius from your house.
How you start is to identify an outlet for your fruit. Will the excess fruit go back to the tree-owner, the harvesting volunteers, a food bank of your choice, food closet, or soup kitchen. All these places generally are happy to receive the fruit. Ask first. Contact food assistance agencies in advance to verify the quantities they can distribute and what day and time is best to receive the donations.
When forming your group of volunteer harvesters, a group of 4 to 10 people, such as your neighbors or family can harvest about 3 to 6 trees in a few hours, depending upon the type of tree. Get permission from the tree owner to harvest any excess fruit the owner doesn't want. The best way to start is to look at trees in people's yards if you can see them from the street that faces their backyard. Knock on doors and ask permission to look for the trees that have fruit.
A simple flyer with information about your effort is great to give to the home owner or tree owner in advance so you can be contacted and make an appointment when people are home. Gather and identify what supplies you need such as 6 to 8 foot A-frame ladders, picker poles, harvest/pruning shears, 5 gallon buckets, boxes of waxed or regular cardboard, and gloves.
You don't need liability insurance if someone gets hurt while picking fruit on your property from your tree, if you're the homeowner. Fruit tree owners are exempt from liability for injuries to gleaners who are collecting fruit on their property for donation to others by the federal Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of 1996.
Just share the experience of knocking on doors if you are not getting any calls or emails as a result of your flyers. Or place an online ad in one of those free online ad blogs, if it's suitable and appropriate to your purpose. Meet your neighbors and share the project. Thank the homeowner/tree owner. For more information, contact Soil Born Farms' Harvest Sacramento Project. They've been gleaning fruit, more than 22,000 pounds in 2011 that would have otherwise rotted on the tree or ground in peoples' backyards.
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