Apple Day in Numbers
- Varieties of apple: 60
- Entry fee: £1 (kids under 5 free)
- Attendance: 459 (not counting kids under 5!)
- Storyteller sessions: 3
- Duration: 3 hours
- Volunteers on the day: 21
- Batches of home made cake: 16
- Volunteers who baked the cakes: 8
- Amount raised: over £900
Huge thanks to the 21 hard working volunteers who ran Apple Day—and to 8 volunteer cake bakers. Over 460 people came in, and there was much enjoyment and learning for both adults and children alike.
Our takings of over £900 go into the running of the Centre—including the our fundraising appeal for our Main Hall Acoustics project (donate here).
—Mary Hogan, event co-ordinator
What can I do? Where to find great apples?
South African apples, imported out of season, are in British supermarkets now. This is nothing less than a disgrace. The best thing you can do now after Apple Day is to become an online customer of Growing Communities, the local non-profit food scheme for Haringey and Hackney.
In the past couple of months on the Growing Communities scheme, the fruit bags have contained Scrumptious, Discovery, Epicure, Santana, Windsor, Initial, Egremont, Russet and Blaze. All grown by farmers in the UK, mostly in Kent and Sussex. All differing in juiciness, flavour, tartness and texture. And all pesticide-free and as unpackaged as they day they were picked from the tree.
Climate-friendly, nutritious food, worth every penny to support our health and food security in this country.
And, you can pick up your fruit (and veg) weekly at our community centre collection point. There are numerous other collection points across the boroughs of Haringey and Hackney.
Find out more: www.gcvegscheme.org
—Mary Hogan
Rosamund Coady shares her reflections
A big thank you to Mary and all the volunteers for Apple Day On October 20th.
Mary explained that as well as a fun event this was to highlight the great work being done by British farmers such as Blackmoor Farm, which supplies the apple varieties for the event—and many small farmers who don’t get a look in at the supermarkets.
The event was heaving when we got there. We tried lots of apples and I can’t remember the names—but they were all very different in colour, texture and flavour – so it was wonderful to try such a variety.
There was a story telling corner, Friends of the Earth, local honey sales and some delicious home made cake for sale. We bought some cider and took it to have later at home. It was very tasty and I was glad to track down some proper craft made cider—which is impossible to find in the supermarket.