What Is it?

PFTP is working on two community based research projects for 2021-2023

1) What keeps people from accessing fruit - particularly fruit that grows near them, and what would make a difference?

2) What keeps people from harvesting their own fruit and sharing with neighbors? What can PFTP do to make it easier for folks to harvest and share in their neighborhoods, so that we aren’t creating a reliance on our limited capacity to harvest.

Why Does it Matter

Both of these projects seek to ask Community what they need and what solutions they already know would work, before we make assumptions based on our limited knowledge. Asking people first is a key part of our equity commitments to be strengths based and to not make assumptions on behalf of others.

At the close of these projects, we will have a set of assumptions that we can test with partner organizations and community members to see how much we can impact people’s access to fruit and their ability to harvest and share without needing us (don’t worry, we’re still here for people who still need us!).

How is it Going?

Thanks to several interns and project volunteers, we have created and distributed surveys (the barriers survey is in English, Spanish, and Russian!), received initial data sets, and are moving on to the next stages.

For the Barriers to Access survey, we still need some more data, so will be offering in person opportunities to learn to use “weird fruit” - first up is Quince and Mary Silfven, intern, will be leading the project. She will coach 6 participants in creating the pickles, then roughly 100 batches will go out to multifamily housing in East Portland with a recipe and instructions. The survey will also be distributed again at that point to drum up more interest. Future ideas include solar dehydration, more pickles, field trips, etc. All ideas that came from the first round of data collection! Thanks to interns Mary, Anna Williams, and Rebecca May for getting us to this point, and partner organization Trash for Peace for their work in survey distribution! Additional thanks to East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District for funding incentives for participants.

For the Mutual Aid/Sharing survey, we got some great initial info and have moved onto stakeholder interviews! interns Paige Hopkins and Christopher Karo have completed the initial evaluation, with the professional guidance of PFTP supporter Michelle Hynes, and are using that to inform interviews. Once we have information back from those interviews, we’ll begin dreaming up pilot projects for the 2022 harvest season! Thanks to interns Madeleine Zusman, Paige, and Christopher and advisor Michelle for your work to get us to this point! Also many thanks to the neighborhood associates that helped share that first survey!