Lynn Nicholas receives cherry donation from Not Far From The Tree‘s Marc Michalak

It’s funny how sometimes a sad event can turn into something really wonderful. Last month a cherry thief was spotted in Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard stripping the entire harvest off our three young cherry trees. This was to be our very first harvest and we were all very disappointed not to be able to taste the fruit of our labour.  But, this month our disappointment turned to delight when we heard that Not Far From The Tree, a wonderful Toronto-based fruit harvesting organization, wanted to donate 5-10 pounds of sour cherries to our group as a way of making us feel better!

Our group, Growing for Green, has a long history with Not Far From The Tree. They helped and supported us when we launched our orchard project in 2009. So when Marc Michalak, the group’s picking coordinator, read an article by Catherine Porter in the Toronto Star about the cherry theft in our orchard, he wrote to us to say how sad he was about it. Marc had recently organized the harvest of a sour cherry tree at Spadina Museum and offered to donate 5-10 pounds of cherries to our group – since we didn’t get a chance to enjoy our own cherries this year.

We were delighted and gratefully accepted! We invited our hard working volunteers to come and claim their share. With her portion, Growing for Green’s head gardener Sherry Firing baked a fantastic cherry pie and for those lucky enough to taste a piece – pie has never tasted so good! It’s not just the fresh picked cherries that made the pie so great…it’s the feeling that our work in the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard is valued and appreciated that means so much to us.

Thanks for all you do Not Far From The Tree!