Volunteers Lend a Hand in Italy's Olive Harvest to Help Those in Need

“I believe that here, in our region, sol­i­dar­ity and social bond­ing are an essen­tial part of the olive oil cul­ture,” Giovanni Aletto, the head of the munic­i­pal botan­i­cal gar­den of Agrigento, Sicily, told Olive Oil Times.

Like other agri­cul­tural experts in Italy, and with the help of the dozens of olive trees in the botan­i­cal gar­den, Aletto works over­time to help the younger gen­er­a­tions cul­ti­vate an appre­ci­a­tion for olive oil cul­ture.

As the har­vest­ing sea­son unfolds across Italy, sev­eral char­i­ties and social vol­un­teer orga­ni­za­tions have joined efforts with Aletto to give a deeper mean­ing to the pick­ing of the olives.

“It all started three years ago,” Aletto recalled, ​“when we first approached sev­eral local char­i­ties and they sent over young sem­i­nary stu­dents to help us har­vest the olives, bring them to the oil mill and then dis­trib­ute that oil to fam­i­lies in need.”

As the Covid-19 pan­demic began to take its toll on local economies, Aletto and many oth­ers believed that even more could be done.

“This year, we got in touch with sev­eral asso­ci­a­tions and char­i­ties involved in man­ag­ing kitchens and can­teens ded­i­cated to fam­i­lies in need,” the agron­o­mist said.

While the botan­i­cal gar­den of Agrigento con­tains just under 100 olive trees, they are more than enough to involve many of the younger gen­er­a­tions in a new expe­ri­ence, Aletto empha­sized.

“Even with the pro­tec­tive dis­tanc­ing due to the pan­demic, kids and young­sters had the best of expe­ri­ences, con­ju­gat­ing the joy of the olive har­vest and olive oil pro­duc­tion to a true expe­ri­ence of sol­i­dar­ity and togeth­er­ness,” he said.

Within more than 6,900 hectares (17,000 acres), the botan­i­cal gar­den is home to many other trees, mostly oranges and tan­ger­ines but also apples, so Aletto is already plan­ning new ini­tia­tives in favor of the poor involv­ing chil­dren and char­i­ties.

Helping the young gen­er­a­tions approach olive har­vest­ing and olive oil pro­duc­tion is the path fol­lowed by a num­ber of other edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions through­out the coun­try.

Students from the mid­dle and high schools of Città Sant’Angelo, in the Abruzzo region, have har­vested all of the olives within the munic­i­pal ter­ri­tory for a project dubbed the ​“olive oil school.”

Under the super­vi­sion of their teach­ers, stu­dents have picked the fruits and fol­lowed them to the nearby oil mill, where they were trans­formed into organic extra vir­gin olive oil. That extra vir­gin olive oil is then bot­tled and the stu­dents super­vise the label­ing.

Once the whole process is com­plete, the bot­tles will be sold at an auc­tion, with the prof­its donated to local fam­i­lies in need.

In Puglia, sol­i­dar­ity and col­lab­o­ra­tion with local char­i­ties are also bring­ing stu­dents, pub­lic ser­vants, schools and local insti­tu­tions together.

In Locorotondo, not far from Bari, an edu­ca­tional gar­den project has brought together young peo­ple from sev­eral schools to care for the olive trees and help with the har­vest.

It all started four years ago thanks to a munic­i­pal ini­tia­tive that was wel­comed by the local schools. Since then, all of the har­vested fruits from the olive trees cul­ti­vated on pub­lic lands within Locorotondo have been trans­formed by a local oil mill. From there, the olive oil is given to local Caritas vol­un­teers for dis­tri­b­u­tion among those fam­i­lies who have asked for food sup­port.

In another town in the Bari area, Modugno, the local parishes keep gath­er­ing and giv­ing away essen­tial food to the fam­i­lies in need, with olive oil being one of the most rel­e­vant items. With the clo­sure of the parish build­ings due to the Covid-19 pan­demic, Don Amedeo man­aged to arrange food dis­tri­b­u­tion from his bal­cony, located just above street level.

Volunteers bring food bought or donated by the parishes to the priest’s apart­ment and from there, the 74-years-old cleric hands out bags filled with pasta, milk, flour and olive oil to those in need.

“If they have young kids in their fam­ily, I usu­ally add some cook­ies and fruit juices,” Amedeo told the local news­pa­per, Barinedita.

Meanwhile, on the oppo­site end of the coun­try, in the region of Lombardy, the tra­di­tional har­vest­ing of the olive trees in Bosto have seen many vol­un­teers from the entire Varese region flock to par­tic­i­pate.

Starting 10 years ago, the goal of the ini­tia­tive has been to har­vest the olives for pro­duc­ing the Sant’Ilario Lake Olive Oil, a brand that is syn­ony­mous with sol­i­dar­ity. Every year hun­dreds of liters of organic extra vir­gin olive oil are given to those in need by the local asso­ci­a­tions and the local parish.

In just two days, the vol­un­teers har­vested more than 16,000 kilo­grams of olives, and more were added by local small and medium grow­ers, many of whom tra­di­tion­ally donate a part of their own pro­duc­tion to char­ity.

“The pick­ing of the olives is a joy­ful moment, not only because we do it for a good cause, but also because it brings together peo­ple who over time have become friends, and many more who are just now dis­cov­er­ing the beauty and the har­mony behind the olive oil pro­duc­tion,” Michele Daverio, a local vol­un­teer, told Olive Oil Times.

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