'Need to look at foods in a different way': Calgary fruit tree registry hopes to plant a seed

What's free but priceless?

Fruit picked from trees that otherwise would have gone to waste. It's turned into jams and other creations by a group of volunteers who are hungry for more.

Theresa Hendricken is an organizer with the Community Fruit Tree Registry program. The small group seeks out Calgary fruit trees that aren't being harvested by their owners, and with permission, picks and puts the bounty to good use.

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"Last year I was walking the pathway and there was an apple tree and all of the apples were falling on the ground," Hendricken told CBC News.

"I thought, 'somebody should be picking those apples.' I put an ad on Kijiji for apple trees and we got a few responses so my husband and I drove around, we picked apples and we canned them last year."

Hendricken says it's a great marriage of economics and healthy food.

"We are on a fixed income and how can you create something from nothing? That is what my thoughts were, 'I want good food but I can't afford the prices in the grocery store,' so I decided to look within my community. Within my community, I also found other things that are edible. We have been picking berries," she explained.

"We've just been trying to be self-sustainable."

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Volunteer Christine Harrington says the project has got her two children more connected to the land.

"It is so rewarding because I get to see my kids partake in it and I get to see them blossom into something passionate that I am passionate about," Harrington said.

"They want to learn more about it. They want to learn about the canning part of it, and they want to learn about, how does this grow? They want to know the connection between the Earth and what it produces and how we get the fruit from the Earth and we can then convert it into something healthy for us and that genuinely gives us the nutrition that we need, not the stuff that's processed that has GMOs in it. This is whole foods that we are consuming."

The group has big plans. The goal, once they have more trees in the registry and possibly more volunteers, is to share what they pick. A third of the fruit will go to the tree's owner, one third will go to a local service agency and the volunteer gets the last third.

There's even talk about getting into vegetables in the future too.

The group can be reached through theirFacebook page, Forest Lawn Foodies. That'll be the best way to get in touch to register a tree or volunteer.

"As Calgarians, as people in communities, we need to look at foods in a different way," Hendricken said.

"We need to look at how we grow things and what grows that's good for us."

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