Barack Obama praises Melbourne environmental activist's different approach to bushfire recovery

You might not think making apricot jam or roasting coffee beans has much to do with bushfire recovery.

Alice Mahar's grassroots group preserves excess fruit
 from local trees to help communities in bushfire recovery.

But in a repurposed shipping container in Oakleigh, in Melbourne's south-east, a group of women are stirring, bottling and chatting to support the cause.

"We can't go and fight fires, we can't go and rescue animals but what we can do is we can get as much food as possible, we can preserve it and we can donate it to those areas," said The Corner Store Network founder and director Alice Mahar.

She added that what people were asking for right now was monetary donations, so the food would be warehoused until it was wanted.

The fruit is excess produce from local trees that would have ended up rotting on lawns. 

After a year of running the program, the group has saved 500 kilograms of fruit from landfill — preventing about 800kg of carbon being released into the atmosphere.

Read the ABC News story by Margaret Paul - “Barack Obama praises Melbourne environmental activist's different approach to bushfire recovery.”