Volunteer for Fruit Gleaning Initiative to help fight hunger

Pick fruit, help fight hunger.

The Minnesota Project is hosting a launch party for its Fruit of the City gleaning initiative, a program by which volunteer pickers stock local food shelves with fresh fruit. Food shelves tend to receive more boxed and canned foods vs. perishable ones so the project helps take surplus apples, pears, and plums from the trees of local orchards and homeowners and redistribute the fruit where it's needed most.

The event takes place on Wednesday, July 27th from 6:30-8:00 pm at the Jaycees Shelter in Roseville Central Park, 2540 North Lexington Ave in Roseville and will provide an overview of how the program works and information about how to get getting involved with fruit tree gleanings and fruit tree classes for homeowners.

In the past two years since its launch, Fruits of the City has donated more than 39,000 pounds of fruit to local food shelves and hopes to harvest 36,000 pounds this year--the equivalent of 6,500 family servings.

For more information about the Fruits of the City launch, or to RSVP, please go to www.fruitsofthecity.org, call 651-789-3321, or email fruits@mnproject.org.