Hey everyone: don’t forget about the real world!

Somehow, three wrongs have conspired to make a right. On one side of the triangle: people in France with large gardens often overflowing with fruit and vegetables over the summer and autumn but who – for a number of reasons – just cannot pick it all.

On a second: people with too much time on their hands, and who feel alienated from their communities and the people around them. Finally, on the third: those either in precarious work or receiving benefits, and who may wish to eat more healthily but simply can’t afford to.

What those vignettes paint is a portrait of a country not doing so well, or at least not working in the way it was intended. This is what Coralie Tisné-Versailles thought when she decided to launch her charity in La Rochelle, on the west coast of France.

Really, it all began with a Facebook post. “We took a photo of my mother-in-law in her garden, holding a basket of cherries,” she told Le Monde. “We posted it on Facebook, along with a short message: “Are you also drowning in cherries? If you’d like, we’ll come and rescue them, then share them with people who can’t afford to buy them.”

Because they forgot to specify that the offer was only local, they ended up receiving hundreds of responses from across the country. She decided to try and gather some volunteers and, in 2020, Aux Arbres, Citoyens! (To The Trees, Citizens!) was born. Six years on, the group is now formed of 12 associations around France, supported by nearly a thousand volunteers.

Every year, from mid-May to the end of October, these people go into the gardens of mostly elderly people and spend the afternoon picking anything from cherries and plums to apricots and apples. It’s an activity that brings generations together: from retirees who may not be able to help but will cherish the company of friendly neighbours helping them out to children playing around and eating fresh fruit. Thanks to the charity, everyone’s a winner.

“You can feel that it generates a little pride,” co-founder Alice Lorenz told the paper. All that produce has real value and goes to help people in need: it getting picked means that people who may otherwise feel left out from society now get “an indirect social purpose”. Of course, the volunteers themselves also benefit from leaving the house and doing something worthy.

Amazingly, Tisné-Versailles even mentioned two long-estranged sisters in Bordeaux, who met up again by accident while going apple picking, then decided to remain in contact.

Of course, few may hope to experience such drastic results when deciding to work in a stranger’s garden, and it’s fair to say that Aux Arbres, Citoyens!, while a tremendous initiative, is unlikely to solve any of the major problems currently facing France. A drop of wonderful wine may be exquisite, but it won’t change the taste of the ocean. Still, what a joy it is to find out that some people are working hard to try and make the world a better place.

Across the west, progressives are trying to find ways to stop the growing alienation and atomisation of people, as it so often leads them straight into the arms of the populist and authoritarian right, but the solutions can’t all come from political parties or top-down policies. Sometimes, being a good citizen and encouraging others to do the same may do much more than any slogan or attack ad.