The current food system is unsustainable, unaffordable, and isn’t providing healthy food to those who need it most. Enter Grow Food Instead, who want to give the power of growing food back to the people.
Grow Food Instead is led by Rachel Yeats and Brad Harding, two hardworking changemakers seeking to educate people on the benefits of growing and harvesting their own food. They’ve brought this goal to PledgeMe because they want to set up a small-scale market garden in the Tauranga city centre which will serve as an education hub. They plan to provide community workshops, summer internships and paid apprenticeships for disadvantaged youth. By selling their produce directly to food distributors, they can cut out the middle man and expand their business – their long-term goal is to train their apprentices to the point where they can set up a market garden of their own.
But to do any of this, Grow Food Instead need your help. And they’re offering awesome rewards in exchange for it – everything from a seed multipack to a bag of potential fruit trees. We loved the ingenuity behind this social enterprise, so we talked to Rachel about how she’s finding the campaign so far.
How are you finding the campaign so far?
We are loving the campaign! It has been a very full on time, but it is so exciting and motivating to meet and talk to so many people that are really enthusiastic about our project. It reassures us that we are on the right track and that regenerating our food system, teaching disadvantaged youth to grow food, increasing access to local, nutrient dense food are all things that are strongly desired by our local community. It’s also turned out to be great marketing, we’ve had several businesses interested in using us as a supplier. We’re tracking really well to meet our goal of 30% raised by the end of the first week, and that’s reassuring too, that the strategy is working well so far.
What do you have planned for the rest of your campaign – anything for us to look forward to?
We have some neat stuff coming up – some coverage in the media this week and the next, and we’ll be out in the community over the next few weeks doing giveaways and talking to the public about our project. We also have an online event planned, and some bonus benefits for our pledgers in the works.
Anything you want to shout out to your crowd?
Our absolute deepest gratitude. Some of the pledges we’ve received have us floored. We made the commitment when we first started putting this project together, that we wanted it to be collaborative and responsive and fill a need. This campaign isn’t just about gathering pledges – it’s about building a crowd of magnificent people to build something magnificent with us.
To help Rachel and Brad teach disadvantaged youth to grow food instead, check out their awesome campaign right here.
