The aim of the Community Patchwork Orchard project is to 'bring more free, fresh and healthy fruit to the people of Middlesbrough.'
Working with Middlesbrough Environment City, an independent charity that promotes sustainable lifestyles, Barefoot is tasked with managing a heritage orchard of over 100 fruit trees, identifying and mapping sources of publicly accessible fruit, organising and supporting promotional events and collecting and distributing surplus fruit to community centres in the town. Barefoot is also pulling together a team of enthusiastic volunteers to help steer the project towards a financially sustainable future, investigating possibilities of income generation and the development of a social enterprise.
More information can be found about the project on its website or Facebook page or read about the achievements of the project to date, the people involved, find tips about how to care for fruit trees and discover fruit based recipes below!