Jessica Roder picks fruit at a house in Edmonton on Wednesday night. (Larissa Kozun/CBC)An Edmonton group is volunteering to pick fruit in people's backyards and give some of it to the Edmonton Food Bank.

Homeowners can invite volunteers with Operation Fruit Rescue to come to their house and pick fruit, with equal shares going to the food bank, volunteers and the homeowner.

"Some people don't know how to pick or don't have the time to process it," said group founder Jessica Roder.

"I got a call from a 90-year-old man yesterday who just can't do it himself anymore and so, if we come and pick it, he still gets to keep some of it if he wants and it doesn't go to waste."

The group held its first fruit-picking sessions Wednesday night. About 14 volunteers split up into groups and picked raspberries, apples, sour cherries, gooseberries and black currants at three houses.

Linnie Chamberlin was one of the volunteers who picked fruit for Operation Fruit Rescue on Wednesday evening. (Larissa Kozun/CBC)Roder heard about a similar group in Toronto and was inspired to get the Edmonton group going when she saw apples that had fallen on the ground, unused and uneaten, in the neighbourhood near her office.

"For the last two years I've been thinking, 'Oh, I've got to pick up the courage to just go and knock on somebody's door and ask if I could pick their apples,' since we were living in an apartment with no access to a garden," she said.

Then she met other people who were also interested in getting a group together.

While volunteers can take a third of the fruit for themselves, they are going to pool most of it and then can and juice it.

The initiative is also educational, said volunteer Linnie Chamberlin, who has grown her own fruit for years.

"When I tell people I grow pears and grapes, they say, 'No, no, you can't do that in Edmonton.' And I don't think people realize just how much food we can grow here and what a variety," she said.

The group will pick fruit for the rest of the summer.