Volunteers plant an orchard as part of the Fruity Nutty Five Contest at Centro Hispano’s Guadalupe Head Start Program on Milwaukee’s south side. (Photo by Hannah Kiger, Victory Garden Initiative)

For the fifth year in a row, Victory Garden Initiative (VGI) is giving away five community orchards through the Fruity Nutty 5 Contest. Communities in Milwaukee County are encouraged to apply to win up to 30 fruit and nut trees to cultivate beautiful local food sources and pockets of edible abundance in the city we call home. To date, VGI has planted 23 orchards across the County. VGI’s mission is to build communities that grow their own food, creating a community-based, socially just, environmentally sustainable, nutritious food system for all. Planting these five orchards is key to that fruitful work.

This year’s Fruity Nutty 5 Contest will launch on October 1, 2016. Gather your neighbors and find the application on VictoryGardenInitiative.org/FruityNutty. Apply via mail or email by February 1, 2017, to win up to 30 fruit and nut trees: hazelnuts, cherries, peaches, pears, apples, plums and more. Winners will be announced at VGI’s Fruity Nutty Affair in February 2017, and volunteers will plant the orchards on Earth Day, April 22nd. This is one of VGI’s most inspiring events of the year, and they look forward to putting the power of growing your food back in your hands.

“I am very pleased and pleasantly surprised at the very positive response to the orchard from the neighborhood, the community in general and even outside of the community,” said one 2015 Fruity Nutty 5 winner. “We have gotten to know many of the neighbors and they have been very helpful in providing water for the trees. Your concept of helping to build community really does work!”

Neighborhood orchards provide more than delicious, organic, local fruits and nuts—though they do that as well. They cultivate roots for closer communities. They supplement grocery bills. They get our neighbors outside, enjoying and preserving our environment.

To learn more and apply, log on to VictoryGardenInitiative.org/FruityNutty or call (414) 431-0888.

Boy scout troops helped plant trees at a location in Hales Corners. Hales Corners Environmental Committee was one of 2016’s Fruity Nutty Five Contest winners. (Photo by Hannah Kiger, Victory Garden Initiative)

Volunteers plant a pear tree in a vacant lot in Hales Corners as part of the Fruity Nutty Five Contest in April, 2016. (Photo by Hannah Kiger, Victory Garden Initiative)