Community Fruit Harvest Otepoti will celebrate a very successful picking season by hosting a Dunedin Harvest Festival this weekend.
The free community event will be held this Sunday, from 11am-2.30pm at The Valley Project rooms and North East Valley Normal School hall.
Community Fruit Harvest Ōtepoti co-ordinator Karena Garratt said the festival would be a celebration of a fantastic harvest season, in which volunteers have picked about 4000kg (4 tonnes) of fruit from Dunedin back yards.
The scheme has been operating since 2015, under the umbrella of Our Food Network and The Valley Project, and has picked and distributed many tonnes of fruit across the community and to food banks.
For the past few months, dozens of volunteer fruit pickers have been visiting Dunedin back yards, at the invitation of the householders, to pick fruit that would otherwise be wasted.
Ms Garratt and fellow co-ordinator Tamsyn Leigh are thrilled with the amount of produce harvested over the summer.
"Word is definitely spreading out in the community, and about 75% of the properties we have picked this year are new to us," Ms Garratt said.
The produce was distributed via a range of organisations, including the Presbyterian Support and St Vincent de Paul foodbanks, KiwiHarvest, SuperGrans, Araiteuru Marae, Pataka Kai community pantries and through a trial surplus stall.
"We want to acknowledge the volunteers, property owners, and recipients, whose support helps make the harvest such a success," she said.
The Harvest Festival will feature apple and pear pressing, a home-made jam contest, music, stalls and workshops. All interested people, including children, are welcome.
People are invited to bring their best jam, chutney, or preserves to enter the contest at 10.45am inside the school hall.
The event will be a zero waste event, and participants are invited to bring their own coffee cups and bottles for pressed juice.
