What is Sudbury Shared Harvest?
In 2013, a small group of people started something called 'Fruit for All,' to connect people having surplus fruit growing on their properties with soup kitchens and other community food programs that serve those in need.
In 2014, the group partnered with Eat Local Sudbury Cooperative to develop the program further and in 2016, they began requesting vegetable donations as well. In 2015, volunteers also began planting fruit trees in public parks and in the same year, the group registered as a non-profit, calling it Sudbury Shared Harvest.
In 2016, Sudbury Shared Harvest recruited volunteers to begin planning Sudbury's first community food forest at Delki Dozzi park and planting began in 2017. By then, Fruit for All had proved to be very resource-intensive. In other words, the amount of time and money it took to get the surplus produce from where it was to where it was needed turned out to not make sense.
Since 2017, Sudbury Shared Harvest has focused on coordinated volunteer involvement in maintaining the food forest at Delki Dozzi food forest and establishing more of them (each much smaller than the one at Delki Dozzi, but spread out across the city). Eventually, we hope to establish at least one in each of Sudbury's 12 wards.
In 2023 and 2024, we produced a series of videos linked to Ontario high school curriculum. The videos - found on our YouTube channel - introduce students to our food forest projects. When human resources capacity allows, we offer field trips and other experiential education activities to high school groups.