Our 2016 Journey
29 August
Falling Fruit launches its 2016 operation! Helped and supported by ShareCity of Trinity College, Nicky Byrne and Jenny Greene of RTE 2Fm and Catherine Cleary’s piece in the Irish Times, 2016 was a bountiful year! With many new donors and wonderful volunteers, a vast quantity of apples was gathered and distributed to charities around Dublin.
8 September
We saw our first Falling Fruit Harvest! We are very grateful to our wonderful donating family – Lynda, Josephine and Clara – in Sandymount. We were treated to delicious apple flapjacks with tea! Thanks too to the hardworking volunteers – Ilona, Steven and John. Apples went to a charity locally – on Pearse Street (minimising food miles).
14 September
Another fabulous day picking surplus fruit around Dublin. Beautiful weather, beautiful people. We listened to poetry from our first donating host, Pat, as we picked apples. We thank him, Mia and Marilyn for a glorious morning! Our second hosts very generously gave large amounts of excellent fruit. The charity was pleased with the abundance of fresh fruit!
16 September
More Falling Fruit picking today in Rathgar. We had a wonderful time with our hosts, Mary and Declan and gathered loads of fruit. We were greatly looked after with tea, sandwiches and biscuits. Our second host Lynda had an enormous crop of fruit which she very kindly agreed to deliver to the charity herself. Huge thanks for all the donations and for the great welcome we received.
21 September
More Falling Fruit for charities. Brigitte collected her organic apples and brought them to a charity in Drogheda. Maeve from Greystones gathered apples from a couple of trees and delivered to a charity in Bray. Liz harvested 3 containers of cooking apples in Coolock and delivered them to a charity nearby. Wonderful work – many thanks!
23 September
Another great apple harvest in Blackrock today! Many thanks to our kind and generous host Catherine for a huge donation (up to 6 boxes) of fruit and for looking after us so well. Bia FI will distribute the fruit to charities.
24 September
Rain didn’t stop picking at Clontarf today! Many thanks to Maria for the fruit – cooking apples and eating apples. Many thanks to Mindy and John for coming out in the rain to pick the fruit.
26 September
Many thanks to Penny in Dalkey for a great donation of apples, to Josh for helping and John for being the best helper ever! Foodcloud and Bia FI, and their wonderful volunteers, are super-efficient in getting all the fruit collected, stored and distributing it to charities – much appreciated!
30 September
Two more wonderful Falling Fruit picking events this week – Drumcondra and Ballymun. Many thanks to Anne and Karen, and Linda for the fruit. Thanks to our great volunteers without whom nothing could happen! The FoodCloud van collected the fruit for distribution among charities (don’t you love the wording on the van!). Huge thanks to everyone! Not all apples are good enough to go to charities so we were delighted to find a use for the ‘seconds’ – a charity which has horses and other animals! ♥
Participation in TCD Probe Event – thanks to all who visited us, to the Probe team for an inspiring event and to ShareCity who introduced WeShare to Probe. Special thanks to our Fernanda and Barry who did enormous work for the evening. We are so grateful for the donated apples which we were able to bring to the event (eating apples from Drumcondra and Santry, pears from Santry, cooking apples from Clontarf and Dalkey, eating and cooking apples from Ballymun, cooking apples from Dalkey). Huge thanks to Santry Community Garden who provided lots of apples for the event.
5 October
Fabulous Falling Fruit pick today! Tons of apples! Easy work! Perfect fruit! Our huge thanks to Kevin who made this happen! If you can figure out where it is you can have some of the apples! Thanks to our valuable volunteers – Ilona, Dave and John.
6 October
A pearfect day for picking pears in D13! Thanks to Angela, John and Sorcha.
7 October
Fruitful Friday! 2 Falling Fruit Picks – Churchtown and Phibsboro. Thanks to Moira and Niall, and Anne and Barry for wonderful donations of tasty fruit. Two great teams – huge thanks to Julie and Elaine in Churchtown and Helen, Debbie, John, Catherine, Dave, in Phibsboro!
10 October
Huge Falling Fruit harvest today! Endless thanks to Dave, John and Kevin! Also to Gerry who collected the harvest for Foodcloud!
13 October
Delighted to deliver more Falling Fruit Dublin apples to the beautiful horses at Child Vision- Equine Therapy Facility.
15 October
Great sunshine for our morning pick in Rathfarnham! Thanks to our kind and generous host Richard and to the A(apple)Team – Emma, Barry, Kieran and Alex.
21 October
A great Falling Fruit operation yesterday! Seven of us volunteers and helpers – Cliodhna, Dave, Emma, Jean, John and Julie. The large harvest, kindly donated by Kevin, was distributed to 3 FoodBanks: Tallaght, Dun Laoghaire and Glasnevin. The wonderful volunteers, including Jean who delivered to Tallaght, Julie who delivered to Dun Laoghaire on her lunch break from work, and Dave who is looking after Glasnevin delivery and also storage, are a super team. I am so very grateful to all! ♥
24 October
Delighted to attend the Foodcloud Hubs Event today and to meet some of the fabulous people working to prevent food waste. Great storage place for Falling Fruit too!
26 October
We hope there are happy horses at Cherry Orchard Equine Centre after receiving some Falling Fruit surplus apples today! Huge thanks to Geraldine who delivered them.
28 October
Delighted to be able to bring more Falling Fruit apples to ChildVision Equine Centre.
11 November
Final Falling Fruit pick for this year perhaps, in D3. Huge thanks to Marian and family for donating lots of apples. Thanks to John and Helen who did a great job. Apples were delivered to Crosscare Foodbank.
21 December
A huge thank you to all of you wonderful people who helped promote and support the Falling Fruit Project this year by sharing posts, ‘liking’, tweeting, commenting, spreading the word offline and for all the goodwill you generated around it. I posted the initial announcement in September and asked you to share it – over 100 of you did so and so the word spread. Almost 9000 people saw it! I am very thankful because from that came lots fruit and volunteers. The project has grown this year and I have plans to expand it further next year so watch out for it in 2017.
Merry Christmas – Happy Holiday, from Bernie and the Apple Crew! ♥
Mapping of Harvests in Co. Dublin
Courtesy of Emma Bradfield Skelly
