The charity using a STIHL tiller to help local food banks

We were really pleased to be able to donate a STIHL tiller to registered charity Freely Fruity recently to help them on their inspiring mission to make fruit freely available for everyone. Read on to find out more about their story and how our MH 445 tiller has helped increase their output…

“Freely Fruity was the dream of three friends (Ryan, James and Matt) and began life in March 2020.

At first, our plan was to plant fruit trees and bushes into local communities and have these trees provide food to people and wildlife alike. There was a secondary benefit, beyond sustenance; the trees would directly reduce carbon emissions as well as having a lower carbon footprint than shop-bought fruit.

However, the charity had only just put down roots when the Covid-19 pandemic began. We became aware of the community’s increasing dependency on local food banks but there seemed to be a lack of fresh, healthy produce available to people who really needed it. We wanted to do something about that, so we changed our plans to include a community allotment and started planting produce for the food banks.

It was really tough at the start; we grew donated plants on land temporarily loaned to us. Freely Fruity quickly grew though; by May we’d managed to cultivate over 400 strawberry plants, 600 tomato plants, 80 raspberry canes and many other fruits and vegetables.

Then the good stuff happened! We were able to donate fresh, organic produce to the local food banks in the Berkshire area. Over the next few months, we supplied three food banks a week, with hundreds of kilos of free produce.

We really came to appreciate the power of community and all the help we were given. We are getting ready for our next season, adding several new beds and a 20m polytunnel to our growing space. So far this winter we’ve already planted in excess of 3000 strawberry plants. This should increase our output exponentially in 2021.

Another huge achievement for the team was gaining full charity status in July. With the prospect of normality on the horizon, we can also recommence our tree planting projects around the local community.

We are so amazed by the generosity of STIHL in supporting our charity. The MH 445 tiller has been a game-changer for us and has meant we can do a day’s work in no time at all. It’s such a great product and from all of us at Freely Fruity we cannot thank you enough.”