Abundance is a project run by Grow Sheffield to harvest the seasonal glut of local fruit like apples, pear and plums.

Each year hundreds of fruit trees go unpicked either because people don’t notice them, may not be physically able to harvest them or there are just too many fruits at one time.

Abundance is a team of volunteers who have been helping harvest city fruit and redistributing the surplus to the community on a non-profit basis - to community cafes, nurseries, Surestarts and individuals. They have also juiced tonnes of fruit and made jams, chutneys and preserves, some of which, has been for sale. Abundance contines through the seasonal cycle with planting and pruning workshops.

In June 09 they produced an amazing Handbook as a guide to community urban harvesting.

There are lots of links on their site for more schemes...

Of particular interest is Forage Oakland who also intend to publish a guide which will 'be of use to other fruit barter networks as they build neighborhood gleaning projects."

Fallen Fruit in LA features their story in Hand Made and they have also produced some wonderful 'how to' guides on their website.