RTV # 13 Plant Seeds! Community Gardens!

A Year of Raising the Village - Week #13. Plant Seeds in your Community. Be a part of a Community Garden! Want to encourage others to be excited about good healthy food? Have a passion to be part of a sustainable food system? Well, community gardens are planting seeds of inspiration. Here are a few of our favourite links (thanks to community nutritionist Helene Dufour for sharing her favourite links with us):

• Want to encourage children’s excitement about good healthy food? Growing Chef. Chefs for Children’s Urban Agriculture Program: Supports and encourages the development and growth of urban agriculture and provides an avenue for chefs and growers to engage in the community and to support food sustainability. http://www.growingchefs.ca/

• How to celebrate local food? FarmFolk/CityFolk Society is a non-profit society that works with farm & city to cultivate a local, sustainable food system. They develop and operate projects that provide access to & protection of foodlands; that support local, small scale growers and producers; and that educate, communicate and celebrate with local food communities. http://www.ffcf.bc.ca/index.html

• What are the benefits for children? Check out this resource which shows the many developmental benefits of plants in the playground. What are children learning as they take part in gardening? They learn in holistic ways (emotional, social, physical benefits). www.councilecd.ca/files/PanCanadianEDI_Poster_DevelopmentalBenefitsofPlantsinthePlayground.pdf

• Is your school district on board? Vancouver school board adopted a progressive school garden policy and process document to replace their previous, restrictive version. It's now available online - it will eventually be formatted with graphics/ diagrams, but in the meanwhile, you can view the content at: http://www.vsb.bc.ca/district-policy/io-school-food-garden-policy

• Want to formalize your community garden effort? Check out these City policies: See this one from Victoria: http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/pdfs/cmmnty_garden_policy.pdf?zoom_highlight=gardens or this one from Toronto: www.city.toronto.on.ca/food_hunger

• In the web-link explorer spirit? Keep clicking! Here are a few more: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/kinder/commun.html http://www.childrenfirstpg.com/communitygardens.htm

...Send us your links and we will add to this blog.

Village Raising Tip: Community gardens are a great way to involve both children and adults in beautifying community while working with nature and working on food sustainability!