Beginning in May, Tigard food pantry, Bethlehem House of Bread, worked with the Portland non-profit The Portland Fruit Tree Project to obtain a new refrigerator for fruit storage at its facility. The new “harvest hub” was unveiled in Tigard on July 23.
The new fridge will allow volunteers and donors to store fruit directly at the Bethlehem House of Bread, 9055 SW Locust Street, saving them a taxing trip up to Northeast Portland.
“The Portland Fruit Tree has a fruit fridge over in Northeastern Portland,” volunteer Kacey Carpenter told Tigard Life. “So we used to drive over there to their fruit fridge, and during the week they’d put all this fresh produce and fruit in the fruit fridge, and we’d take it and drive all the way over and put it here.”
The Portland Fruit Tree Project aims to curb food insecurity by focusing on fruit. The group maintains community orchards, harvests fruit from trees and keeps fruit fresh at its harvest hub at Leaven Community Center in Northeast Portland.
The effort to establish a fridge in Tigard was spurred by Bethlehem House of Bread volunteer and Program Coordinator at the Association of Gleaning Organizations, Kathy Sharp, who told Tigard Life that the collaboration between the two parties was “organic” and that getting the new fridge officially established was “a huge achievement.”
“This partnership started about three years ago,” Sharp said. “Bringing together Portland Fruit Tree Project and Bethlehem House of Bread was something that came up organically…We needed one (fruit fridge) on the west side.”
An opening ceremony for the fridge, attended by local figures like Tigard Mayor Yi-Kang Hu, Oregon Representative Sue Rieke Smith, and Partners for Hunger Free Oregon Policy Manager Amanda Orozco, was held at the house of bread on July 23.
“One thing I really love about Tigard is that this is really a community where neighbors are helping neighbors,” Hu said at the ceremony. “On behalf of the City of Tigard and the city council, thank you for doing all this great work.”
The new fridge cost “roughly $10,000,” according to Bethlehem House of Bread Pastoral Director Jeff Lowry. The Starseed Foundation donated funding for the new fridge.
“There’s no way we could have done this by ourselves this fast; it would have taken years to raise the money,” Lowry told Tigard Life.
Lowry said the project was a big benefit for both groups and “a no-brainer.”
Due to federal cuts to SNAP funding and additional challenges posed by the national elimination of government grants for food assistance, Bethlehem House of Bread and other food pantries have seen increases in attendance and lower levels of food on hand.
“They had a record high of families coming in seeking food,” Sharp said. “Food pantries really need to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, it’s the hardest thing to do and the Oregon Food Bank is running low.”
Portland Fruit Tree Project Executive Director Heather Kiesler Fornes told Tigard Life that the new hub would allow the nonprofit to expand its services in areas around Tigard and Tualatin and that local harvests were already on the rise.
“One of our major issues is we have a bunch of trees over here, and people would ask us to harvest them, but logistically it was kind of silly to go from our inner-east side location out here and back to the office,” Fornes said. “I think we have four more westside harvests this weekend.”
The Bethlehem House of Bread is open on Sundays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesdays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Thursdays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. More information about the fridge is available at bethlehemhouseofbread.org.
