Bloomington Community Orchard was our Positive Change recipient in August. It is with much thanks to our customers who rounded up last month that we are able to present them with $11,616.69!
Bloomington Community Orchard is an organization devoted to growing fruit for the community and growing their orcharding skills through educational opportunities. The publicly owned orchard is maintained by volunteers, and the harvest is available to everyone in the community.
BCO has big plans to use some of the donated money to expand their educational materials and help others grow.
We received the following note from Bloomington Community Orchard Board Chair, Josh David:
“We are currently refocusing our efforts to invest more in the development of the Orchard flagship site (e.g., with the rainwater-harvesting system we installed this year), while compiling more on-demand educational resources to put on our new website to help individuals and communities with their growing efforts. We’ve also seen a spike in other communities around the country asking us how they can create something like the BCO in their own regions, so we’ve started advising others on how to cultivate their own community or campus orchards, and are in the process of writing a “How to Start a Community Orchard” handbook that we can hopefully get published and distributed to libraries around the country, to help others learn from our experiences, and turn the BCO into a sustainable model for other communities around the country (and world) to replicate.
From all of us at the Orchard, thank you again for nurturing the local food movement and always finding more ways to give back to the community!”
Visit their website to learn more about BCO, ways you can become involved, and how your continued donations can support this organization and our community.
