By Laura A. Oda/Staff of Contra Costa Times
View article InsideBayArea.com

A NEW DONATION of fruit-bearing trees arrived in Richmond on Friday, delivered by grower Tom Burchell, of Burchell Nursery. Burchell and his crew took 500 trees -- a mix of peach, cherry, nectarine, apricot and plum -- to Opportunity West and another 500 that he and his workers passed out at the Center for Human Development in the Shields-Reid Center in North Richmond.

The donation is the latest negotiated by El Cerrito-based group Self-Sustaining Communities (www.self-sustainingcommunities.org), which has persuaded growers to contribute more than 6,000 trees since November 2009 in its effort to help needy communities better provide for themselves.