How an apple a day brings kindness in a community

Many Incredible Edible groups will be using the bountiful produce of our fruit trees to bring communities together in the run up to Apple Day on 21^st October.

Incredible Edible Wakefield have produced a great video about one of their projects, Wrenthorpe Community Orchard, which was started in 2014 with the aim to use the planting, nurturing and harvesting of apple tress to bring people from the local community together.

Wrenthorpe used to have a number of apple and pear orchards which have unfortunately disappeared to make way for housing.  So the Wrenthorpe Community Orchard team decided to plant some trees in unused or neglected places around the area to bring freshly picked apples back into the lives of community members.  People were offered the chance to plant a tree and have a plaque to remember a family member, or to celebrate the birth of a new life into a family – these trees will be visited as the child grows, and as the apple tree grows and becomes more productive.

Community members remembered when they used to pick an apple and a pear on their way to school and the team wanted the children growing up now to have that same simple pleasure.  And Apple Day gives the group a chance to really celebrate some of those simpler traditions, like apple bobbing, fresh juice and apple printing, which all remind people about their common identity.

If you’d like to join in with some apple pressing and are in the Wakefield area, you can go along to their Juicing Day on Sunday 30^th September and their Apple Day celebrations on 14th October.  And if you’ve got some amazing apple day stories, share them with us so together we can inspire others to get involved!