ACCORDING to Ellen Burns, founder of The Hidden Orchard, a quarter of Ballarat residents have had to access food relief this year.<\/p>\n
With this in mind, the not-for-profit fruit harvesting organisation is working towards solving the city\u2019s food insecurity issue while minimising food waste.<\/p>\n
\u201cFood security, sadly, has become more of an issue over COVID,\u201d Ms Burns said. \u201cIt\u2019s is a huge problem in Ballarat but it\u2019s not one that people really see of talk about.<\/p>\n
\u201cA really large number of residents had to access emergency and relief food and we\u2019re trying to help address that.\u201d<\/p>\n
With support from the Ballarat Permaculture Guild and BGT, The Hidden Orchard began in 2017 and have harvested and donated an immense amount of produce since.<\/p>\n
As one of the four founders of the group, Ms Burns said they originally got the idea from a collective in Castlemaine called Growing Abundance.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike them, we follow a model of thirds, a third goes to the tree owner but usually they either don\u2019t want much, a third goes to the volunteers that help and again people often take less, then at least a third to charity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we generally give more, closer to 75 per cent of the food to charity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe currently distribute to over 30 food relief charities around Ballarat, ranging from Food is Free a public access space, and places like Breezeway meals program, Our Kitchen, Second Bites, groups that do school breakfast programs, meals for homeless.\u201d<\/p>\n
During lockdown, the group went on hiatus and took a break from harvesting, and unfortunately over that period the Hidden Orchard\u2019s storage unit was broken into and stolen from.<\/p>\n
Although the break-in was devastating, Ms Burns said it hopefully shouldn\u2019t hinder the next season\u2019s harvest.<\/p>\n
\u201cLuckily, after I discovered the break-in I contacted our harvest leaders and because of the abrupt end to the season, a lot of them still had some gear at home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the equipment that we need to harvest like the stick pickers, most of our ladders are actually accounted for and the things that went missing were our cash tin and all of our secateurs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to think that whoever stole the stuff didn\u2019t realise they were stealing from a volunteer group but, luckily, it shouldn\u2019t affect our next harvesting season because we have all the basic equipment we need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over time, the group has grown to now include a committee of 13, eight harvest leaders and over 100 volunteers, however, they are always on the lookout for more.<\/p>\n
Although donations can be useful to a not-for-profit, Ms Burns said The Hidden Orchard relies most on their volunteers and the hours of work they put in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re hoping to start up again in November in some capacity and we\u2019re always happy to have more volunteers sign up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing we\u2019re really looking for is harvest leaders, people that can actually lead harvest, that\u2019s what allows us to have multiple harvests happening at the same time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re after people that are willing to step up as a leader, it\u2019s not a very complicated job, to help us increase the volume of harvest with a smaller amount of people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ACCORDING to Ellen Burns, founder of The Hidden Orchard, a quarter of Ballarat residents have had to access food relief this year. With this in mind, the not-for-profit fruit harvesting organisation is working towards solving the city\u2019s food insecurity issue while minimising food waste. \u201cFood security, sadly, has become more of an issue over COVID,\u201d […]<\/p>\n