Pear Harvest for Charity in the Heart of Dunwoody

Red Alert for Dunwoody homeowners.

Do you have fruit ripening on trees in your yard that you don’t have time to pick? Are apples, pears, persimmons or other fruit falling off the branches, rotting on the ground and attracting stinging insects and annoying squirrels?

Want to get rid of the fruit? And the pests? For free?

There’s an easy way. Just email the Dunwoody Community Garden at member@dunwoodygarden.org.

Rest assured, someone will contact you. They’ll make the arrangements not only to remove the fruit but to donate it to charity.

That’s what happened Saturday morning at the intersection of Chamblee Dunwoody and Mount Vernon roads with a pear tree heavily laden with ripening fruit, some of it hanging along the edge of Mount Vernon.

As Dunwoody Police blocked a lane of traffic on the Mount Vernon Road side of the Cheek-Spruill Farmhouse property, about three dozen volunteers shook more than a quarter of a ton of pears from the tree. The volunteers were from the Dunwoody Community Garden, Garden Isaiah at the Temple Emanu-El in Sandy Springs and the Concrete Jungle, an in-town volunteer group that picks fruit, nuts and vegetables and donates them to the Atlanta Community Food Bank.

Pattie Baker, a Community Garden leader who has had her eyes on the Cheek-Spruill Farmhouse  tree for about three years and who spearheaded Saturday’s project, brought in the Concrete Jungle (http://www.concrete-jungle.org/) as a partner because they are experienced at this sort of thing. Working almost exclusively in Atlanta, Craig Durkin, founder of the Concrete Jungle, says he expects his group to be busy every weekend into September picking – gleaning, in fruit harvesting parlance – unwanted fruit from apple, pear, persimmon and other fruit-bearing trees and vines across the city.

The gleaning process is fairly simple. A “shaker” climbs the tree and braces himself or herself on a sturdy limb over fruit-bearing branches. Down below, a group of volunteers carrying a tarp position themselves under the shaker and the about-to-be shaken fruit.

On Saturday morning, having secured the very generous permission of the Dunwoody Preservation Trust, on whose property the pear tree grows, and with the police blocking the right lane of Mount Vernon near Chamblee Dunwoody, the volunteers went to work. Don Converse placed a ladder against the tree and Dunwoody City Council Member Robert Wittenstein became the first shaker to scurry up into the tree’s branches.

Not to be outdone, Rod Pittman, who, it is worth noting, is 81 and soon will be 82, scampered up the ladder shortly afterwards.

“Ready?” asked Wittenstein in what turned out to be more of a warning than a question.

“Ready!” answered the eager but unsuspecting tarp bearers.

Wittenstein started bouncing on the limb.

Then the fun began.

The pears began raining down like little green half-pound (or better) bombs. Unfortunately, not all of them hit the intended target … the tarp.

“INCOMING!” shouted a voice that sounded like it belonged to Shawn Bard.

“Ow!” cried another voice that could have belonged to Rebecca Barria. “That hit me on the head. I know it left a bruise.”

The tarp volunteers quickly learned that when a shaker announced that he was ready to, well, shake a leg and a limb, it was a time to duck, dodge or cover. Angela Minyard had a better idea. At one time, she held a large red tub over her head.

Van Malone chose an even safer route. He picked fruit with a very long pole that kept him at a very safe distance!

When the last pear was gleaned from the tree, Pattie and other volunteers began weighing the haul. Total usable pears that didn’t splatter onto the sidewalk or Mount Vernon Road or crack open when whacking a volunteer: 576 pounds.

Concrete Jungle, which donates harvested fruit to homeless shelters or food pantries, took an estimated 76 pounds of the fruit to distribute as charity gifts. The Community Garden will donate the remaining 500 pounds to Malachi’s Storehouse at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church on North Peachtree Road.

The Community Garden values all of its donations at $5 per pound. The Garden Board knows that is high for pears. But, they also value their greens, which are worth $12 a pound, at the same rate. The thinking is that the average $5 per price per pound evens out to a fair value for all produce at the end of the year. By that standard, Saturday’s harvest is worth a total value of $2,880, and of that amount the value of the donation to Malachi’s Storehouse is worth $2,500.

Malachi's served 1,782 people in June. Most of those folks got fresh produce, something that was only a dream just a year ago, Kathy Malcolm Hall, co-director of Malachi’s Storehouse, wrote in an email to Community Garden volunteers when told that pears were on their way to Malachi’s. “We are so very grateful to partner with all you amazing people. I am gobsmacked about the possibility of fruit!”  

This is the Community Garden’s first public fruit harvest. Pattie and Community Garden leaders are using it as a case study in searching for an efficient fruit distribution method and to see if they want to continue a fruit-gleaning effort throughout the fruit-bearing season (pears, figs, apples, muscadines and more). They also want to see if someone emerges who is willing to lead this effort in Dunwoody and build a fruit-gleaning team going forward. 

Responsibilities include discovering the fruit, getting permission to pick from the property owner, arranging for safety considerations as needed, obtaining the proper supplies required for the harvest, organizing the volunteers and timing the harvest to the ripening of the fruit. “There is an off-season!” Pattie observed, thinking that perhaps an incentive might induce a volunteer to step forward.

Anyone who is interested in being the gleaner leader is invited to email the Community Garden at member@dunwoodygarden.org.

There is, no doubt, a lot more fruit to be picked in Dunwoody!