Mission

Portland Fruit Tree Project’s (PFTP) mission is to increase equitable access to healthful food and to strengthen communities by empowering neighbors to share in the harvest and care of city-grown produce. 

Our primary goal is to elevate the voices of marginalized groups and to promote food justice, not to create dependence on our services. To accomplish this, PFTP works to foster community resilience through harvesting fruit, addressing barriers to knowledge about using and growing fruit in an urban environment, connecting community members, and supporting community led organizations addressing injustices in the food system. 

We acknowledge the problematic elements of our past as a predominantly white-led organization with a narrow, charity-based aid model, and commit to improving our approach going forward. We recognize that this work requires ongoing reflection and authentic collaboration with partners/community and commit to actively seek ways to address systemic racism and inequities within our work, and the local food system as a whole.

We believe that investing deeply in mutual aid networks and partnerships with food justice focused organizations led by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI), and other Communities-of-Color will lead to a more equitable and sustainable organization and allow us to meet community needs in a more holistic way. 

Commitments

Understanding our mission, our history, and our goals, we commit to the following:

• We will strengthen commitments to specific partners and commit to asking questions of the community first and not believe that our ideas are the best ideas. 

• We will be culturally responsive and strengths-based, and will value the lived-experience and technical knowledge of our community partners as essential insights and contributions to our shared initiatives

• As we promote board, staff, and volunteer roles, we’ll be mindful about sharing opportunities with partner agencies, reducing barriers to participation, and being a welcoming and inclusive team that people want to join.

• We will seek to understand/learn from the communities with whom we are partnering and practice continual learning and growth.

• We recognize that redistribution of wealth is an important piece of addressing systemic racism and will prioritize our financial spending on PoC, women-owned, and small businesses.

• We will devote resources to advocacy, in partnership with other organizations

• We will be accountable to a long-term view of the impacts of our work/actions and will change our actions if unintended negative impacts occur. We know that mistakes happen, and we’ll adapt based on outcomes.

• We will bring an anti-racist perspective to any largely White-led organizations with which we work and address the impacts of racism and systemic inequity when working in coalition.

• We will engage board, staff, volunteers, and internal community in training opportunities to prepare them to understand and confront the impacts of racism and systemic inequity.

• We commit to being transparent and honest about our actions and resources.

• We will not use “charity” language; we will work in partnership with communities to make positive change. For now, this looks like a transition to focusing on mutual aid.

• We recognize and respect the grounded understanding and knowledge that is held within local communities, especially marginalized communities. We commit to honor that knowledge and to approach collaboration from a space of humility.

History

Portland Fruit Tree Project acknowledges that Portland was built on the traditional lands taken from the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Tumwater, Tualatin Kalapuya, Wasco, Molalla, Cowlitz and Watlala bands of the Chinook, and other Tribes who made, and make, their homes along the Columbia River.

Within the city of Portland, we acknowledge that gentrification of predominantly Black neighborhoods is an ongoing issue, and that a long history of racist land and home ownership policies continue to limit land access to People of Color (PoC). Historically, land and property throughout the city have been purchased and made available primarily to White people, and urban farming and foraging options have followed suit. We recognize that systemic racism, historically and presently, affects most aspects of PoC’s lives, and that access to healthful, fresh food is not equitable in our city. 

PFTP was created in 2006 with the idea that the gleaning and distribution of excess fruit would combat the waste of a potential food resource in Portland. During the following 15 years, PFTP hosted over 750 harvest events and helped with the establishment of five—now largely independent—Community Orchards. We also provided care to over a thousand trees, provided educational opportunities to participants through long-term stewardship programs, and led educational workshops on topics including food preservation, fruit tree care, pollinators, and environmental issues. 

In the past, our goal was to ensure that all Portlanders had access to fruit by creating intentional space for people on limited incomes to harvest fruit. We also donated harvested fruit to organizations addressing food insecurity. We acknowledge that our original focus and goals did not go far enough toward addressing the root causes of poverty and food insecurity and that our programming and decision-making often failed to include the input of those most affected by lack of access to fresh, local fruit. 

In 2017, our organization took a one year pause to reflect on our growth, sustainability, and values. This pause gave us an opportunity to recreate our mission with deeper intention. We look forward to continuing to educate ourselves and our community on how we can support food equity, combat food deserts, and reduce waste in a way that is inclusive and considers the voices of many.

Closing

We know that our work will only be successful if we are able to partner with frontline communities truly and authentically in a collective effort to achieve food justice. We’ll engage with respect, have the courage to share decision making, control, and resources, and hold high expectations of ourselves and the organization. We will partner collaboratively with our community to deepen cultural understanding, build positive relationships, and work together toward transformative change.

Note: This is a living document that will evolve over time according to the changing needs of the community and our programs. We invite you to share your thoughts and experiences with us as we continue to grow.