A local group is asking the public for help in its bid to win the “Gardens for Good” competition.
An international competition in which only one Canadian project will be funded, the prize is $15,000.
Members of the public can vote for the project (and read more about it) online here.
Youth with experience planting ecologically-sustainable gardens will work with other youth to develop new garden projects.
A core group of Youth Agriculture Mentors (YAMs) originally developed the project while working and volunteering together with Sudbury Shared Harvest, a non-profit organization which led the establishment of Sudbury’s first community food forest.
The Delki Dozzi Community Food Forest has become a site for environmental education, an outdoor communal space, as well as a source of locally grown food that is available to anyone in the community who wishes to pick it.
The original plan was to gradually expand the size of the food forest over a number of years, but public feedback led the project in a different direction.
In 2019, Sudbury Shared Harvest collaborated with a high school and a neighbourhood association to create two much smaller food forests, or “edible forest gardens.” It was out of these initiatives that the YAM project was born.
Connecting with other local youth who are participating in food security initiatives in Sudbury, the core group of YAMs will mentor other youth to also take leadership roles in the project, delivering programs and activities related to permaculture-style gardens and environmental education in their schools and communities and for their peers.
To learn more about Sudbury Shared Harvest, visit the group's website.
