Hello!
We are super excited about this crowdfunder so thank you so much for being here. We really need your support!
We are a group of locals with a huge passion for people and the planet, we grow food, we share it and we would love you to also.
There are some great rewards on this funding page, so have a browse...please be aware we will not send out rewards until the funder ends on April 10th, just in case you are buying as gifts! You can also simply make a donation and please share our project with your friends so we can progress all our amazing projects !
In 2012 a walled Victorian 'Secret Garden' was uncovered and replanted into a food growing haven. It is our areas worst kept secret. It is set in one of the most deprived wards in the country where there is 47% of children in poverty.
In 2014 our project was born. We have been food growing with sustainable no chemical methods, supplying food to our community and learning skills since then.
Many of our community struggle with isolation, poor mental and physical health. People want to improve their situation and we are together in that challenge. You can see in our video some of the people that benefit, there are many more.
1. Education: Provide people with the skills and resources needed to grow their own food using organic techniques, and create a model of community sufficiency which can be replicated in other urban areas.
2. Community: Build a resilient, collaborative, thriving community based around growing, learning, sharing and eating food together.
3. Access to food: Improve health and well-being in our area through the sharing and eating of nutritious, locally grown food, as well as surplus from gardens and businesses.
4. Environment: To heal natural ecosystems and increase biodiversity by using organic regenerative gardening techniques. To promote lifestyles that are in harmony with nature.
- 2 Walled Gardens
- Food Education Workshops and Nature Play Sessions
-10 Bee Hives
- A Composting Facility on a shopping centre roof.
- Feed Our Community programme, which picks up 2-3 tonnes of food surplus from supermarkets and local businesses EVERY WEEK and distribute parcels to people who need it.
We are busy as the bees making our area community sufficient and sustainable. Thinking globally acting locally and supporting each other in the belief that 'Together We Can Grow'.
We decided to begin on valentines day and go right through lent until Easter weekend. It is a long 8 weeks, but that is plenty of time to share the campaign out there and raise as much as possible for our projects.
The funding will help us
- Build an outdoor classroom to deliver our workshop programme. This will include a BBQ and Pizza oven (already funded), which we can host community food gatherings and our adjacent schools can use for outdoor classes.
- Deliver our education workshops over the next 5 years to teach our community food growing skills and create more connection with nature
- Run our volunteer programme which is a lifeline to some and respite to others.
- Continue to deliver Feed Our Community, feeding over 1000 people in need per month and reducing food waste.
- Expand our programme to develop new projects such as community composting and soil improvement, food preserving project, bee keeping and community education.
You will see from the amazing list of rewards that you can also sponsor certain aspects of our project to see those emerge too! You could also get a smaller reward but make a bigger donation?? !!
Our locally awarded honey is amazing. This year we got so much more honey than expected. We wanted to make the honey go further and send a message with it. That is when we decided to crowd fund. Next year, if we get sponsorship for new hives we will produce more honey and give it to our neighbours and friends too. But this year most of it will go to you as you donate... so choose your rewards wisely.
Lastly the honey money will help fund our staff who are so dedicated and passionate about what they do. Up until this year it has all been voluntary but we want to create stability and progress our charity further. All staff are part time and do so much more than they are paid for. In fact all our paid staff also continue to volunteer their time to help grow and give out food. We want to expand this team to support people growing in their own homes too... that could be you?
Get Growing and Stay Grounded !
Our Boscombe Bees
Our garden where bees can collect pollen and pollinate all our veggies.
Our friends at Beebombs kindly donated 50 of these great packs for our campaign!!
Our local award winning honey and 'bee grounded' sticker.
Example of the composter we have and shelter we plan to build.
Our garden veggies and site for Edible Forest (where poly tunnel is pictured)
Ruth one of our more experienced volunteers and local link to Gardens of Sanctuary.
