Transition Erin has created a new community festival, celebrating the ultimate in healthy local eating.
Erin’s first Apple Fest will be on Oct. 25 (1-4pm) at McMillan Park and the Erin United Church.
Main events will be the actual hands-on creation of apple crisp, apple pies, apple sauce, and apple cider.
Members of the public can also enjoy apple variety tastings and identification, orchard mapping, and entertainment.
Admission is by donation, pay-what-you-can, to help defray costs, and the goods produced will be available for sale afterwards.
As an official Transition Town initiative – one of nearly 500 around the world – Transition Erin has community resilience as part of its mandate.
This includes the fundamental ability of a community to feed itself, instead of relying on the importation of basic necessities.
The organization’s Fruit Tree Working Group created the idea for Apple Fest and hopes that it will start small and grow to become a larger annual event.
The group has two objectives for this new community festival: first, they want Erin residents to rediscover the simple skill and joy of turning this abundant local resource into healthy delicious food and drink. Secondly, they want to begin an inventory of just how many fruit trees we have growing and producing in our community. Many local farms have old orchards or even single trees that continue to produce fruit but are no longer managed for fruit production.
Rather than simply letting this food go to waste year after year, Transition Erin hopes to pair up landowners with people who are eager to harvest the apples or other fruits.
“If you happen to be one of those tree owners, please feel free to bring along any quantity of your apples, no matter what they look like. Transition Erin will be sure to put them to good use,” organizers state.
