Thanks to all of This Year's Supporters!

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SeedMoney, a Maine-based nonprofit providing grants, crowdfunding opportunities and training to food garden projects across the country and around the world, offered more than 400 grants this year through their SeedMoney Challenge - a month-long campaign throughout which we were raising funds for our Community Herb Project!

 

Each fall, from November 15 to December 15, SeedMoney offers challenge grants to a variety of community and school garden projects through a 30-day crowdfunding challenge. Grants are open to all types of public food garden projects, regardless of their location, and are offered on a sliding scale. The size of a particular project's grant depends on how much the competitor organization is able to raise over the 30-day period compared to other projects participating in the challenge. So, we keep what we raise (in the typical crowdfunding style), BUT we are eligible to receive an additional grant from SeedMoney, which could be anywhere between $100 and $1,000. 

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This year, we raised $2,455 and hit 81% of our $3,00 goal! On top of that, we expect a $300 grant from SeedMoney based on our ranking, and a bonus Strong Finish grant of $100!

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Funding the Growing Center's Community Herb Project

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The funding we receive through the SeedMoney Challenge will help continue to fund our Community Herb Project, expanding our herb production and related programming at the Growing Center. It will build on lessons from our programming over the past three years to engage visitors, aged preschoolers to adults, in learning about how herbs are grown, how to care for and harvest them, and how they can be used for culinary and well-being in our lives. The herbs grown will represent culinary standards, as well as demonstrate herbs used across the many cultures and countries represented by our local residents. It is critical that our communities offer access to safe and healing green spaces where folks can connect with birds, insects, plants and soil. Herbs are an easy entry into learning about gardening and nature, a way to find common ground, community, and to recognize and celebrate our differences and diversity. 

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With additional SeedMoney funding, we look to create more intergenerational opportunities in 2024, building on developing relationships with local Latinos, Brazilians and Asian/Asian-American families. Preliminary discussions have created a wealth of ideas of ways to use herbs to reconnect people with nature, to explore their own history & culture through herbs and their uses. Herbs are an easy entryway into learning about gardening and nature, a way to find common ground, community, and to recognize and celebrate our differences and diversity.  It is critical that our communities offer access to safe and healing green spaces where folks can connect with plants and soil as well as insects, birds and animals.

 

In recent years, we have made herbal products such as tinctures, glycerites and salves to share. And we continued working towards a more reciprocal relationship with the land, honoring that the Center is located on Land of the Massachusetts Tribe, the Indigenous Peoples from whom the Colony, Province, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts have taken their name. 

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Read more about our Community Herb Project under Programs & Projects!

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Thank you for your support!