If you follow My laws and faithfully execute My commandments, I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit. – Leviticus 26: 3 – 4.

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.” The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.   – Khalil Gibran

Seattle is a city of indescribable abundance when it comes to fruiting trees. During late summer, the modest trees that you may not have even noticed standing along roadway medians and in city parks reveal their true nature, branches extended and fairly aching with the gift of heavy ripe fruit, the mercy of their abundance bestowed freely and without prejudice. Individuals fortunate enough to have a private fruit tree or two may wind up with hundreds of pounds of ripe pears, plums, quince, or figs in a season.

What to do with that abundance? How much of it can be harvested and enjoyed, and how much is destined to go unpicked and fall to the ground? How much is insect damaged? How many trees do not reach their full productivity for one reason or another?

The trees themselves are the spoken words of the Divine, and their meaning is clear. “Let all who are hungry come and eat,” they whisper. If only there were some way to care for these trees, to harvest this magnificent crop, and to enjoy what we can and distribute the rest freely to people who are hungry…

It turns out there is a way, and it is called City Fruit. City Fruit is a Seattle area nonprofit that cares for these trees, harvests their crop, and distributes it to food banks. If you’ve ever driven past an apple tree growing in the median of a road, or along a trail, or in a park, that has been draped in a fine white net, that’s the work of City Fruit, protecting the fruit from insect damage. At the end of the season, the undamaged fruit will be harvested.

City Fruit is truly Shmita in action, honoring the gift of the abundant fruit, and ensuring that it is put to its best and highest use. As importantly as all of that, City Fruit engages homeowners, volunteer harvesters, and a multitude of businesses and nonprofits across the city to build community around this gift. It engages each participant in the Divine project of nourishing human bodies; the project itself nourishes the soul of the individual, and of the community as a whole.

Here are some of the ways that City Fruit enriches our community:

1. Netting public trees to protect the quality of the fruit produced
2. Harvesting fruit in the fall
3. Distributing fruit to food pantries
4. Enabling homeowners to register their fruit trees and give permission to City Fruit to harvest and donate all or a portion of their crop
5. Sponsoring classes to teach home owners to care for their trees
6. Forming partnerships with different communities such as immigrants, refugees, and youth in growing, caring for, and harvesting fruit

Last year, City Fruit achieved the following remarkable statistics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a world in which some seem to have so much and others have seem to have barely enough to survive, we are taught a lesson by each fruit tree. Each tree reminds us that we are all loved no matter who we are; that we are all worthy to be fed; and there can, indeed, be enough for all, if we will just take that lesson to heart.

Thanks to the groundwork laid by City Fruit, we can all take part immediately in fulfilling the Divine intention, which begins with the gift of the fruit tree.