Welcome to our start-up programme
Do you want to bring more locally and sustainably produced food to your community?
Do you want to build community and create jobs for you and others in your area?
This website is for individuals and groups who want to build practical, community-led alternatives to the current damaging food system.
We can help you.
Latest...Community-led box schemes launched in 2011 continue to grow
Community-led box schemes on the Growing Communities start up programme have continued to grow, distributing 4200 bags of local, sustainably grown fresh produce since June 2011 according to latest figures collated by Growing Communities. The schemes are now feeding an estimated 500 people a week.
Burnley Food links; Local Greens - Herne Hill London; Bite - Manchester; Windmill Community Allotment box scheme, Margate; Lets Eat Local, Moffat, Scotland- are also supporting UK farmers and growers, with 100% of the vegetables sourced so far coming from the UK and 70% coming directly from small-scale local farmers and growers.
Growing Communities is launching the next phase of the Start-up programme in April 2012.
Growing Communities is a social enterprise run by local people in Hackney, East London. We’ve run our community-led box scheme for over 10 years and we now pack over 1000 bags of fruit and vegetables a week, most of which comes direct from local, sustainable farms and some of which we grow ourselves.
We started back in 1993 with three friends (who each found 10 people), one farm, no money and a lot enthusiasm.
We’ve learnt a lot along the way and we now want to help more communities round the UK to set up their own community-led box schemes, as we believe they are a practical mechanism for changing the food system.
That’s why we launched our start-up programme in 2009 and have been developing the materials, training and web-tools with which to help groups set up community-led box scheme using the Growing Communties Model.
>> This website will introduce you to the Growing Communities start-up programme, tell you more about us and show you how to get involved.
