A group hoping to combat food waste planted 162 fruit trees in low-income Portland neighborhoods last year is hoping their efforts will pay off in more ways than one.
Founded in spring 2023 with a $34,000 grant from the charity One Tree Planted, the Portland Fruit Tree Project partnered with local organizations to find community members interested in planting fruit trees in yards in historically low-income neighborhoods.
Founded in 2007, PFTP originally began as a response to food waste, connecting struggling homeowners with abundant fruit-bearing trees with neighbors and community groups in need of their harvest. The group hosted volunteer harvest parties and fruit preservation workshops, and provided guidance on general care of fruit trees. Today, the majority of the harvest is harvested and given to local community groups, with some given to volunteer pickers.
Open Image ModalVolunteers harvest Gravenstein apples from a home in Northeast Portland. The Portland Fruit Tree Project originally began by connecting neighbors with excess fruit from their trees with neighbors and organizations that could use the fruit. Now, on harvest day, volunteers collect and sort the fruit, which is then distributed to organizations in need or taken home by volunteers.
Celeste Noche (HuffPost)
Open Image ModalVolunteers harvest Gravenstein apples from a home in Northeast Portland. The Portland Fruit Tree Project originally started by connecting neighbors with excess fruit from their trees with neighbors and organizations that could use the fruit. Now, on harvest day, volunteers collect and sort the fruit, which is then distributed to organizations in need or taken home by the volunteers.
Celeste Noche (HuffPost)
“When we take care of these trees, they produce better fruit,” says PFTP Executive Director Heather Keasler Fornes.
When Keesler-Fornes started the program in 2020, all of the homeowners PFTP helped were white, which led funders to question who the organization was serving, so PFTP broadened its focus to lower-income areas with fewer trees and where “climate change is felt more rapidly and extremely.”
“Let’s make the trees great in the areas where people are planting trees, but also think about the people who aren’t planting trees,” Keesler-Fornes said.
The group turned to a metric developed by the American Forestry Association called the Tree Equity Score, which rates an area on a scale ranging from 0 to 100 based on factors such as the area’s tree canopy, income, racial makeup, ground temperature, and overall health. The lower the score, the more vulnerable the area is to the adverse effects of climate change.
Open Image Modal The Eastmoreland neighborhood in Southeast Portland has a Tree Equity Score of 100.
Celeste Noche (HuffPost)
In Irvington, an affluent neighborhood in northeast Portland, where century-old trees tower throughout parks and idyllic neighborhoods with wide, quiet streets and greenways, these neighborhoods often have Tree Equity scores at or near 100.
In neighborhoods like Centennial, on Portland’s eastern border, trees are sparse and older trees have been cut down, pedestrian and bike-oriented infrastructure is less common, and many roads lack sidewalks. These areas, which have a tree equity score as low as 50%, are considered heat islands, according to Oregon Metro.
These areas are the most affected by climate change, disproportionately affected by heatwaves, pollution and other environmental hazards, and have historically been home to large numbers of low-income, unhoused and immigrant residents.
Open Image ModalTrees along Powell Street in Southeast Portland were removed for the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Outer Powell Project, an effort to create a safer roadway environment for motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians. An estimated 570 trees will be removed in an area designated as a heat island.
Celeste Noche (HuffPost)
Open Image ModalLeft: Portland residents linger during the sweltering heat near a misting station in Lents Park. Right: People take a break at a cooling station at the Oregon Convention Center.
Specifically, by focusing on increasing fruit trees and mitigating canopy gaps, PFTP can create further opportunities for food sovereignty.
PFTP partnered with the Oregon Asian Pacific American Network and Growing Gardens to plant 162 fruit trees in Southeast Portland.
PFTP workers carry out biannual maintenance checks on the fruit trees planted there, pruning, training and advising where necessary. A few trees did not survive the summer, but the majority are slowly taking root.
Open Image Modal Portland Fruit Tree staff check out the mobile fruit tree index, which shows the location, health and productivity of local fruit trees.
Celeste Noche (HuffPost)
Open image modal Angelica Cortez shows text messages from area residents who received plum trees from the Portland Fruit Tree Project.
Celeste Noche (HuffPost)
“People are [how] “Fruit trees are small,” Keesler-Fornes said, “and some of us who live in areas with low canopy don’t want to plant a lot of big plantation trees. … In East Portland specifically, there was a clear preference for fruit trees from communities of color and different immigrant communities.”
When area residents chose their fruit trees and shrubs in fall 2022, the most popular were pineapple guava (technically a shrub that grows up to 15 feet tall) and figs, but some also tried bananas and yuzu citrus.
Open Image Modal Hai Vo and his wife Truc Nguyen have been gardening since they were children. When they learned about the Portland Fruit Tree Project’s plant distribution from their daughter-in-law, they applied to receive a Fuyu persimmon and a Coolidge pineapple guava. He and his family hope to grow more fruit for themselves and for their friends and colleagues.
Celeste Noche (HuffPost)
Hai Vo, who has called his Southeast Portland home since 2002, proudly waters his garden and checks on the winter persimmons and pineapple guavas he received from PFTP. The grass is pale and brittle everywhere, except around the newly planted trees, which he has been watering to help establish themselves.
Many of the homeowners who received trees were accomplished gardeners, and for them, planting trees wasn’t necessarily a matter of knowledge, but rather access.
“What really drives home that is how much they take care of their plants,” says Sadie Wexler, tree care manager for PFTP. “For us, working with all these communities was like, ‘Oh, this is what we should have been doing all along.'”
