Fruit Trees in Public Parks

I live across the street from a school where, every Tuesday, the Greater Chicago Food Depository gives away food. People start lining up at 3am, and lately, there have been a lot of them.

The line curls around a pine tree and beneath the elms that line the block. Under those useless trees, they wait for the bakery’s throwaways. If only they could reach into that pine tree and pull out some fruit, but you can’t eat a pine cone.

With bellies rumbling across this nation, we’ve filled our public parks with trees that provide shade and nothing else, feeding no beast but squirrel.

Let there be a new approach. Schools and public parks shall plant no tree that doesn’t bear edible fruit.

I’m not saying to tear up public parks for farmland, merely to, if given the choice between planting a fruit tree and planting a useless tree, plant the fruit tree.

There are enough hungry mouths to make use of the harvest. After lunches for school children and produce for food shelters, there won’t be an apple to spare.

Most appealing, the responsibility of turning those trees into food can be pawned off on some charity. Surely if offered the bounty, any local food bank would provide any volunteers needed to collect the crop. As soon as that sapling’s roots are covered in dirt, it’s Big Charity’s burden.

Will planting fruit trees in parks eradicate hunger? Of course not, but if every little bit helps, here’s a little bit.

Until next week,
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Jonathan Rozen