LifeCycles Project Society

An opportunity has opened up at the last minute with the Fruit Tree Project! We will be filling the role as soon as possible, with the start date being July 6th. Interviews will begin early next week. For more information, check out the full job posting on our website.

🍎 Become a Harvest Leader! 🍐

Harvest Leaders are the backbone of the Fruit Tree Project! As a volunteer Harvest Leader, you'll have the flexibility to choose when and where you pick, decide which fruit to harvest, and either build your own team of pickers or create open picks for others to join.

You'll gain experience leading teams, driving vans, and coordinating harvests—and you will be playing a key role in getting more fresh, local fruit into the community.

If you're hoping to get out on more picks this season, consider becoming a Harvest Leader and helping to create opportunities for others to harvest alongside you.

Training involves attending one of our scheduled online orientations (45 mins) and then accompanying a staff member on an initial Buddy Pick to get you started. 🍎

Sign up for an orientation date on our Gleaning Hub, and then go to Join → Shifts! https://gleaning.lifecyclesproject.ca/index.php

🍎 Become a Fruit Tree Assessor! 🍐

Love fruit, meeting people, and exploring beautiful backyards? Our Fruit Tree Assessors play a key role in making the Fruit Tree Project possible, and orientations begin next week!

Tree Assessors help us determine when fruit will be ripe and estimate how much will be available for harvest, ensuring we pick fruit at its peak and get as much as possible into the community.

The role involves visiting beautiful backyards across the region and chatting with Tree Stewards. It's an excellent mix of low impact on your body and high impact on our program!

Training involves attending one of our scheduled online orientations, followed by some hands-on practice in the field with a staff member. Tree Assessors are also encouraged to share in the harvest, with fresh fruit available for pickup once the season gets underway. 🍎

Ready to help bring in the harvest? Sign up now on our Gleaning Hub and go to Join → Shifts! https://gleaning.lifecyclesproject.ca/index.php

🍎 Become a Fruit Picker! 🍐

Harvest season is just around the corner, and we’re excited to welcome new and returning volunteers to the Fruit Tree Project!

This year, we’ve introduced a brand new onboarding process. Our General Orientation is required for brand new volunteers and anyone who has participated in fewer than three picks over the past two years. It is now available on demand, so you can complete it whenever it works for you.

Here's how it works:
🍑 Watch a 30-minute video
🍒 Complete a short quiz
🍏 Get approved within 24–48 hours
🍇 Start signing up for fruit picking opportunities!

Ready to help harvest local fruit and share it with the community? Watch the General Orientation here and get ready to pick! 👉 https://youtu.be/bKQgJNTaNT0

Join us for an afternoon exploring the many native and introduced plants growing at Welland Community Orchard and discover how they have been used in herbal medicine. 🌿

This workshop will include an introduction to principles of herbalism, tips for growing your own herbal medicine garden, ethical harvesting practices, drying and processing techniques as well as a hands on demo on how to make an herbal salve.

Each participant will get to take home a small container of herbal salve made during the workshop.

📅 Sunday, July 5
⏰ 1 PM - 3 PM
📍 Welland Community Orchard, 1215 Stancil Lane
👉 Registration is required - please sign up here: https://shorturl.at/LfZ2J

Join us for a fun and educational tour of the beautiful Welland Orchard this summer!
Spend some time enjoying all the beautiful plants in bloom and learn about some of the many unique varieties of trees and vines we have at Welland including 100+ heritage apple varieties, plout, medlar, pawpaws and more! Plus enjoy a little taste of summer and try some early ripening fruits from the Orchard.

Our aim is for you to leave feeling excited about community orchards and filled up with lots of fun facts about fruit, as well as tips and tricks for caring for trees.

📅 Sunday, June 28
⏰ 1 pm
📍Welland Community Orchard, 1215 Stancil Lane
👉 Register now: https://shorturl.at/LfZ2J
🙌 Thank you to the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program for supporting this program!

We still have some spaces in our upcoming Printmaking in the Orchard workshop on Sunday, June 7th at 1pm. Design and carve your own linocut stamps, and then use them to print a beautiful tote bag to take home! No previous art skills required, and all materials provided.

👉 Sign up here: https://shorturl.at/LfZ2J

Come out and enjoy a morning of art in the Orchard! 🎨

This workshop will walk you through all the steps of how to design, carve and use linocut stamps, as well as how to use materials from some of the wonderful species around the orchard to make collagraph prints. No previous art skills required! All participants will get the chance to design and create their own stamp based on inspiration from the Orchard, and then use it in combination with collagraph techniques to print a beautiful tote bag to take home.

📅 Sunday, June 7
⏰ 1 PM - 3 PM
📍 Welland Community Orchard, 1215 Stancil Lane
👉 Registration is required - please sign up here: https://shorturl.at/LfZ2J

We’re excited to welcome the newest member of our team, Laura (Lore), our new Bear Hill Farm Project Manager 🌱

LifeCycles and Haliburton Community Organic Farm have partnered with the Capital Regional District to develop and maintain the Bear Hill Farm Project—a five-year pilot initiative focused on activating under-utilized agricultural land for food production. (More on this soon!)

Laura (they/them) has worked in the food systems sector for 15+ years. Their land-based work experience is deeply rooted in relationships and an intersectional approach that understands food systems as shaped by class, race, gender, and other social determinants of access.

We’re thrilled to have them on the team and excited for what’s ahead with the Bear Hill Farm Project! 💚

Our Communications Coordinator, Lisa Small, will be on CFUV 101.9 FM today at 3pm, where she’ll be talking about the Victoria Seed Library, Victoria Seedy Saturday, and all things seeds 🌱