When 85 Scripps community members gathered last fall to harvest the olive trees outside the Humanities Building, no one anticipated the difference their work would make. The harvest resulted in 750 bottles of olive oil, which quickly sold out after it was awarded “Best of Show” at the Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil competition earlier this year.
Following the success of last year’s Olive Oil Project, the 2nd Annual Olive Harvest festival will take place on Friday, October 25, from 8:00am – 12:00pm, followed by an appreciation lunch for the first 100 preregistered volunteers.
Last year’s harvest was so successful, in fact, that a new Sustainable Entrepreneurship Coordinator fellowship was partially funded from the profits, a position recent alumna Sara Estevez Cores ’13 now holds. The money raised supports sustainability initiatives and student community internships, and this year’s festival attendees will have the opportunity to order a bottle for $40.
Cores has taken charge of making this year’s harvest even more fun – and sustainable – than the last. “We want to be sustainable, so instead of having paper tickets to enter the volunteer lunch we made a button participants can take home,” she says. The buttons read “I Harvested 2013,” and will be given to the first 100 online registrants.
The festival will also incorporate a photobooth to make a collage of those behind the 2013 harvest and to thank all the community members that contribute.
“I think it’s an awesome opportunity to create community on campus,” Cores says. “It’s an initiative that’s been very successful on campus and with a larger audience who admire what we’re doing. And because we are dependent on the olives and the olive trees, it might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Last year, Phuong Bui ’15 – along with other volunteers – took the olives to the press in Ojai owned by father of alumna Emily Luttrull ’10.
“It was a fascinating experience seeing how the olives were picked and processed,” Bui says. “The oil was incredibly delicious, fresh and buttery with a kick. Participating in our inaugural harvest undoubtedly is one of my favorite memories made at Scripps so far.”
This year, students can get involved by participating in the harvest or by volunteering to take pictures or work the check-in booth, the photo booth, the sales booth and the lunch entry. All volunteers will receive a free T-shirt.
“The olive harvest started as a student initiative idea and has become a great community builder,” says Lola Trafecanty, Director of Grounds. “When you are out there threading through the branches, you start talking to each other and you really get to know people. When else do you get staff, faculty, students and community members to come together like that?”
For more information or to register as a volunteer, go to the Olive Harvest website.