I’m Finn Bates, a freshman at Sutherland High School, and I am trying to help solve a problem my community has been facing for a long time. Every fall, the abundant black walnut trees around my town drop hundreds of pounds of black walnuts. However, instead of being consumed as the cost-free resource that they are, the majority of these walnuts are thrown away each year due to a lack of processing equipment, wasting a valuable and more sustainable resource. Many people don’t even consider the black walnuts a valid food source because of this. By donating to my cause, you are helping me pay for equipment to process and distribute these walnuts around my town, raising awareness of the high potential black walnuts have in becoming a more recognized and regular staple in our daily lives. With the help of my project, my town could gain a greener footprint and on a broader scale, my project could even help lay the foundation for a bigger change in the societal norms of where our food comes from.

After a summer of research regarding walnut processing and preparation, I’m ready to set my plan in action. I’ve always been passionate about helping my community become more eco-friendly and this is my first big step towards doing this. My ultimate goal is to improve my community in a way that is actually noticeable, both environmentally and socially. While this year might not be the year I accomplish that, I am hoping that it will lay the foundation for me to process walnuts on a larger scale in the coming years.

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Walnut Preparation and Fund Uses

Preparing walnuts for consumption is a process which requires meticulous attention to detail in equipment for safe preparation. To help with understanding, the main steps are as follows:

First, the walnuts must be hulled and washed. This entails removing the outer green layer (the hull) of the walnut, washing away any stray fibers clinging to the shell (underneath the hull), and doing a "float test" to determine which walnuts, if any, are diseased or infested.

Next, the healthy and now clean walnuts are placed in an environment where they can receive both the ventilation necessary to cure (dry to approximately 20% of their wet weight) without forming mold as well as protection from rodents, squirrels, and other pests that may attempt to consume them. This stage can last anywhere from two to four weeks, so it is crucial to ensure they are in a stable environment.

Lastly, the walnut meat is removed from the shells and sorted from shell remnants. In the world of nut manufacturing, black walnuts are notorious for needing heavy duty and expensive equipment to break open their hard shells. It also doesn't help much that both the nut meat and shell are similar in color, density, and size so separating the edible and non-edible parts of the nut can be quite a challenge. As a result, (when considering the current available technology on the market) this step can only be realistically done by running the walnuts through industrial machinery. Thankfully, after I reached out, a black walnut processing company in a different region of my state will allow me to use their facilities for this step, so I won't need to worry about obtaining this machinery.

However, there is still much equipment that I will need and most of the equipment necessary for this project is far beyond my budget. This is where I plan to put all of the funds that are donated.

To be more specific, here is my exact list of what donations will be going towards:

$1,150- highly ventilated produce crates to prevent walnuts from molding as they cure

$200- metal mesh to ensure squirrels and other pests are unable to access the walnuts as they cure

$100- An angle grinder power tool for cutting the metal mesh to needed dimensions

$450- carabiners for securing the metal mesh to the produce crates

$230- cargo nets for placing the produce crates on to optimize storage space and ensure that walnuts are far away enough from each other so mold will be unable to develop as they cure

UPDATE:

Thank you to everyone who helped fund my project! I was able to successfully harvest walnuts around my town and now in the process of distributing them.