Sadly the fruit from the tree had fallen on the ground and was laying there rotting away. A resource that was not only being wasted but potentially also causing pest and disease issues for other local fruit growers.

That was back in 2019 with Slow Food Singleton in its infancy but that didn't stop the group's inaugural president Michelle Higgins from gathering like-minded volunteers to start the first citrus rescue.

"Once I saw the fruit just going to waste I started to talk to people who had shown in interest in the Slow Food movement about how we could rescue the fruit and before long Ruth Rogers had put the idea on social media and away we went," said Mrs Higgins.

"Volunteers arrived and people with fruit to rescue contacted us and thats how our project began and it's been growing each year and been something the whole community has really supported."

In 2019 the rescue collected 60 boxes of citrus, the following year its was all done online due to COVID-19 restrictions before a return to normality in 2021 when 110 boxes were collected over a ten week period.

This year with the launch in May so far 75 boxes have been collected and fruit is continuing to arrive at the drop off in Boonal Street.

Mrs Higgins and her team at Slow Food Singleton have just been named the winners of the 2022 Resource Recovery and Waste Management category at the Keep Australia Beautiful Sustainable Communities Tidy Towns national awards.

The awards were held on the weekend in Hastings, Victoria. Slow Food Singleton became eligible for the national wards having been the joint winner of the NSW Tidy Towns Communication & Engagement Award (in Singleton's population category) in March this year.

"We were over the moon to go from being a joint winner at state level to national winner in our own right. But thanks and credit must go to the Singleton Tidy Towns Committee who entered us in that particular category at the nationals," said Mrs Higgins.

"At the national awards Slow Food Singleton were up against some seriously well funded programs operated by councils. Our budget is a few dollars each year to print and laminate a sign saying where to drop off the fruit."

"Citrus Rescue is a project that can be adopted anywhere in Australia, and we look forward to seeing it popping up everywhere and being able to say that's another Singleton first which has influenced our Nation's thinking and practices" a very ecstatic Lyn MacBain, President of Singleton Tidy Towns said.

For the first rescue in 2019 fruit was sent to drought affected communities. Since then fruit has been donated to the Singleton Neighbourhood Centre where it has been used in their breakfast program and for juicing mornings. Singleton Heights Pre-School and Singleton Pre-School are also recipients of the fruit along with Singleton Public School for their Breakfast Club run by the P&C.

Some of the fruit it has been used as stockfeed - cows love a nice orange or lemon or even lime.

"We have simply shared the fruit with love around Singleton," Mrs Higgins said.

"On a budget of a few dollars we have created a system that prevents the fruit from going to landfill and lessens the likelihood of pests and diseases being spread from rotten fruit, " she said.

Slow Food have a citrus rescue coordinator Michelle King who is working with Singleton Rotary Club on Hunter to run the project including picking fruit from trees where the owners are not able to undertake that work.

"We have created a circular economy, at virtually no costs, and it provides fresh, high quality, local fruit to our community, a great outcome," Mrs Higgins said.