Three food-growing projects receive funding

THREE community food growing food projects in County Wicklow have received funding under the GIY (Grow It Yourself ) Energia Get Ireland Growing initiative.

A total of 86 projects nationwide received funding, which aims to encourage people to grow their own food within their community. The local recipients were Wicklow Community Garden, Purple House Cancer Support and Edible Bray/GIY Bray.

Wicklow Community Garden received a SOW award of €500. The community garden aims to get as many people and groups involved in the community garden. They plan to spend their grant on border fences, tools and equipment.

The Purple House Cancer Support received a GROW award of €1,000. It has between 10 to 12 men engaged in the allotment work at any one time throughout the year. The group can change in profile as people progress in their cancer journey but the sup- port and benefit of the allotment remains the same. They intend to use their funding for allotment rent and tools and materials.

Edible Bray/GIY Bray received a HARVEST award of €2,000. Edible Bray is a joint project of Bray GIY and CommonGround and is planting vacant public sites in the town with edibles for demonstration and to provide free fruit and vegetables. They have provided 64 fruit trees for local schools and ran a school garden competition last year. Their planting has transformed the Albert Walk and gets many favourable comments from locals and visitors and their work with schools encourages an awareness of the origins of food and improves the school grounds. They aim to build on the success of this by involving as many of the schools as possible in a competition. The funds will be used for prize money that the schools can use to develop their own gardens as they see fit, enabling the schools to buy tools, materials, seeds etc.