One B.C. city is giving its unwanted fruit delicious new life and saving wildlife

KAMLOOPS – Reducing the incentive for bears and wild creatures to enter human-populated areas can be done in all sorts of creative ways.

WildSafeBC spotlighted one such effort out of Kamloops this week, noting it's one of many communities that has adopted a Gleaning Abundance Program that helps to reduce waste and pick fruit that could otherwise attract wildlife into town.

Something extra special about Kamloops’s program is that they use some of the gleaned fruit to make popsicles for their PopCycle project. PopCycle is a social enterprise, meaning it is a business designed to generate revenue that goes back into the food action program run by the Kamloops Food Policy Council.

PopCycle can be found  at the Farmers’ Market every Saturday, where it's likely that cherry pops will be found.

Kamloops Food Policy Council harvested over 1,800 pounds of cherries this season.

The cherries were picked through the Gleaning Abundance program, where residents can register fruit trees to be harvested by volunteers.

The fruits collected are then distributed to the homeowners, volunteers, and donated to various local charities.

“The model we work on is one third for the homeowner, one third to the volunteers, one third for donations,” Sandra Frangiadakis, food action lead with the Kamloops Food Policy Council, says. She adds that often the homeowners don’t want any of the fruit, which makes for a surplus of donations.

The harvested fruit goes to programs such as the Kamloops Food Bank, the St. Vincent De Paul Society, New Life Mission, and the Elizabeth Fry Society, to name a few. This year, the program harvested from 16 trees and donated cherries to 18 organizations, according to Frangiadakis.

The cherries picked near the end of the harvest were slightly damaged by recent rain, as rain splits the fruit. Damaged cherries are donated to local farmers to feed their animals, according to Frangiadakis.

Frangiadakis says that the hefty cherry haul has been offset by the lack of other fruits, such as apricots.

They're always looking for volunteers and people keen to contribute in this way, please contact Natalie at natalie@kamloopsfoodpolicycouncil.com or Greg at se@kamloopsfoodpolicycouncil.com to make arrangements.

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