This morning, right before I spoke with a dear inspired woman in my life, I was waiting for my computer to charge so I could connect on Skype, and I stumbled onto the website for the Guerilla Grafters project. I got giddy. I signed up immediately. And posted it to my facebook page, and implored people: "Who wants to do this?! Let's do this!" so... Who wants to do this?! Let's do this! READ MORE...
To me this project ties in so sweetly with the Found Fruit groups happening throughout the Bay and beyond, where people organize a map (often times in their minds) of all the local trees (both public and private) that are either offered (in the case of private land) or left to rot (in the case of public land) and then groups of people who are wanting to forage and harvest fruit and other edible plants head out one or two times a week to the various spots that have been chosen and harvest together. Then the food is being put to use (canning/fermenting/baking) by people who are able and wanting to do it, and the people who have the food but either not the ability or the will to eat it all before it goes to waste, both come away benefiting from this communal food project.
Check out the Guerrila Crafters, and let's get to it. From their website:
The Guerrilla Grafters graft fruit bearing branches onto non-fruit bearing, ornamental fruit trees. Over time, delicious, nutritious fruit is made available to urban residents through these grafts. Our web application helps grafters to find graftable trees, to track how grafts are doing, and helps to facilitate gleaning of fruit. It is built by a laterally organized group using all open source code. We aim to prove that a culture of care can be cultivated from the ground up. We aim to turn city streets into food forests, and unravel civilization one branch at a time.
Because I am personally so excited and inspired by ideas like this and how to implement them starting from scratch, and in communities that might not be familiar with food foraging and/or swapping I am thinking about the presentation and wording that would most feel inviting and inspiring. What are your first thoughts when you hear about Guerilla Grafters or Fruit Harvesting groups?