The Kids from HELP visit Ben Nobleman Community Orchard

What a delight to meet the kids from HELP – the Humanitarian Experiential Leadership Program in Mississauga. They came to Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard to learn more about how to establish and operate a community orchard by speaking to one of the orchard’s founders, Susan Poizner. After hearing Susan speak about the orchard at a Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots Planet ReLEAF launch in 2010, some of their colleagues went and planted Mississauga’s first community orchard. Now these teens want to expand the project and plant hundreds of fruit trees in their community.

The kids are smart, creative and they’re doing their research now to figure out what types of fruit trees would thrive in the area, how many volunteers they would need to care for the trees, and how to go about raising money for irrigation and to fund the purchase of the trees. And they’ve done their homework. “What type of trees did you choose…semi-dwarf or full size?” was one of the questions they asked and it was a great one. In Ben Nobleman, we avoided full-sized trees because they will be harder to harvest. But dwarf trees aren’t really sturdy enough for a park setting. So yes, we’ve chosen semi-dwarf.

We look forward to hearing more about this great initiative in the future! For more information about HELP visit www.dpcdsb.org/ROMER/Campuses/HELP.htm