Doris Worland of Olalla is old enough to remember when canning fruit was standard practice to help stretch a family’s grocery budget. So it galls her to see fruit in people’s backyards falling to the ground, rotting.

It’s bothered her for years. This year, she decided to do something about it. Earlier in the summer, Doris mounted a one-woman gleaning campaign, trying to play matchmaker between property owners with more fruit than they were able to use and local food banks.

“What I’m doing is basically harassing these people who have this stuff falling off the trees,” she said. “Most of them say you can have what you want of what they cannot or will not or are unable to use for themsleves.”

Despite some publicity and a universal response that “that’s a good idea,” she has not found enough volunteers to make her idea come to fruition, so to speak. Now, with apples and pears getting ripe, Doris, 78, has been picking fruit and delivering it herself to food banks, but a bad back is slowing her down.

“I don’t have a ladder, and I don’t think I ought to get one,” she said.

Doris is frustrated with the lack of action and the continued waste of fruit.

“I’m kind of upset, discouraged, depressed,” she said. “It’s not as if I’m a politician pressing my agenda, my religion or asking for money. It’s just that I don’t want these things to go to waste if they can be helping somebody.”

If you have fruit to give away or if you can volunteer to pick, call Doris. She is willing and able to deliver the fruit to the food bank.

Contact her at (360) (253) 851-4303 or (360) (253) 970-2047.