This awesome idea truly deserves to be funded. I'd love to be able to easily distribute our extra fruits.

I truely believe that most of the stores do not place products out for free taking or give to foodbanks due to fall backs from a world that has found it easy to sue others. You get into my dumpster and get hurt, it is my fault and you can sue me. As you can tell most of the store rip there clothing and invest in large compactors to keep the really needy safe. Walmart for one is the biggest waster of meats, they clearance them and then set them back into the freezer as lost product and put into the trash. Heck I would make the effort to pick up the frozen meat as long as it was not green and take to the food banks. When was the last time you had a steak? Cleaning out moms house give it to the food pantry or call an organization that feeds the homeless. Just having us say, hey I think …moretoday I will call the pantry and have this picked up or give a few fresh turkeys or chicken. For everything we do today will come back to us ten folds in the future. It just takes on to make a differance.

I do prefer supporting local growers.

Hey Debra, there is a service in NYC that does second-hand collection of unused food in NYC. It's called "City Harvest." They are an interesting model for putting this otherwise unused food back into the system. We may also expand into that service but at the start we want to concentrate on getting fresh local foods from unharvested within the city.

What a fantastic idea. I know when I was a realtor I saw so many vacant houses that had trees that had fruit that needed harvesting and thinking, what a waste.

i shop at a store that carries local produce

What a great idea. About time. Not only do we get fruit that tastes better, it is fresh and not processed in anyway.

Hi, I don't mean to be a spoiler here. I think your idea is great. But could you please remove your video as it is overlapping onto two ideas below yours on the "food" page and then noone can see the other two ideas below yours.

http://ideablob.com/ideas;by_tag?tag=food go to that page and you will see that your video is obscuring/overlapping (completely covering up) two ideas below your idea.

Hi, Thanks for fixing the video. Good luck with your idea it is a good one.

This might also encourage people to start small home gardens to produce their own foods right at home - especially knowing they would not have to waste the extra food that is harvested.

I've thought about doing this here in Colorado as well. Some neighbors made some great cider last harvest season. I would start by mapping it all out and showing the potential harvest, this may get people excited about their immediate area's fruit and how they can get involved. All extra fruit to be composted or fed to chickens of course.

You have a great idea. Where would you get the financing to do this? You could ask the property owners to gather and donate their produce to a coop which gives a dividend back to it's members. If could also be done as a consignment. The growers bring their produce and you pay them for what was sold minus your expenses. Another idea is to start a website similar to craigslist that would match up growers with buyers or foodbanks. This way you wouldn't have brick and mortar expenses or issues with supply/ demand and you can make some ad revenue to cover your own expenses.

Great idea! Your video is the first one I've seen here. Please check out my idea, and your positive vote/comment is appreciated.

Hey there! What about collecting the fruit and giving it to farmtoschools.org? I know there's one in N.M.

It's a great idea, and it's one that my community is already doing to supplement the food bank. They harvest fruit from trees and also encourage people to plant vegetables in their yard, which volunteers collect (if the person doesn't want to drop it off) and distribute. Check out the Edible Garden Project http://www.ediblegardenproject.com/