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Victoria offers start-up cash for new community gardens

Funding available to help underserved neighbourhoods create local food source
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Volunteers tend to fruit trees and surrounding plants in the Vic West community orchard. The City of Victoria is offering new start-up grants to eligible community organizations for the establishment of neighbourhood gardens. (Courtesy City of Victoria)

Growing one’s own food in a personal garden or in a larger neighbourhood plot or orchard can be a good way to ensure a level of food security.

The City of Victoria encourages such actions and is now accepting applications for its 2021 community garden start-up grant. The funding is provided to eligible organizations to help cover the cost of designing, planning, and undertaking public engagement on new community gardens or orchards, and to help cover the cost of construction of such gardens in the city.

The grant includes up to $5,000 for design and public engagement, and up to $10,000 toward building the garden. The city will prioritize support for neighbourhoods without existing community gardens and those with higher population density.

RELATED STORY: Victoria’s community garden plots a hot commodity

The gardens can be one of three types: commons gardens, communal areas maintained and managed by volunteers with the harvest available to the public; allotment gardens, where individual plots are rented, maintained and harvested by members; and community orchards, groves of fruit or nut trees maintained and harvested by a local organization, with produce going to the community.

The application deadline is Oct. 22 and the funding will be awarded in December.

Application forms and other information are available online at bit.ly/3EPcBP2. For more information on starting a community garden, visit bit.ly/3u4fcjg.


 

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