Help Us Make Our SeedMoney™ Grant Challenge Goal!

The Friends of the Community Growing Center has been approved for a 2020 Garden Challenge Grant from SeedMoney, a Maine-based nonprofit that helps vulnerable people and communities start and sustain healthy and sustainable food garden projects. As of Sunday, November 15, we have 30 days to collect online donations and qualify for our Challenge Grant of $600.

The purpose of the grant is to help expand our food and herb production gardens at the Growing Center, including adding a new demonstration raised bed area. It will also add another element to our programming that engages all ages in learning how vegetables and herbs are grown, all while sharing the bulk of our produce through local food security efforts (such as delivering to the local women's shelter or pre-school programs for low-income families).

How does it work? SeedMoney offers challenge grants every year to food garden projects across the world through a 30-day crowdfunding challenge starting November 15 and running through December 15. This year, they are offering 315 grants totaling more than $55,000. Grants are open to all types of public food garden projects and operate on a sliding scale. The size of a grant that a project can receive depends on how much it is able to raise over the 30-day period compared to other projects participating in the challenge. So, the more we raise, the more gets matched, up to $600!

The money we raise from this campaign––and the matching grant funding we hope to qualify for––will be used largely for the cost of soil to fill new raised beds, fashioned from plastic crates, as well as to top off some of the existing raised beds. With this expanded bed capacity, we can continue to improve how we serve the community as a hands-on learning and education site, while also continuing to contribute to local food security efforts. We are also hoping to be able to create and offer the materials for at-home mini-gardens––basically, complete garden kits in a bucket. We already have, or can easily access, most of the materials we need for the project, such as the buckets, the seeds, and/or seedlings, but we need to have soil to make this work!

And any additional funds we raise beyond our goal will be used to support our food and herb production programs for next year, including purchasing hand tools, gloves, and other equipment to also support our new composting program coming on board shortly.

For what it’s worth, our campaign will receive whatever funds we raise regardless of whether we reach (or exceed!) our funding goal or receive a grant.

Please visit our campaign page at SeedMoney to make a donation!