'Food for a Future' - a new project to help Auckland schools develop organic orchards and vegetable gardens.

[David Hodges]

First Public Meeting Wednesday 21 April 7-9pm

Downstairs Meeting Room, Pt Chevalier Community Centre, 18 Huia Road, Pt Chevalier

This project aims to provide free expert advice to Mt. Albert and surrounding area schools to help them develop and maintain gardens and orchards. If possible, we would like to provide free trees too.
While we are targeting Mt. Albert and surrounding suburbs initially, we would eventually like to expand to other parts of Auckland.

Who should come to the meeting ?

anyone who's keen to help -
- teachers,
- parents,
- anyone with knowledge of organic gardening and/or orchards who is keen to share it with teachers,
- anyone who's already involved in school gardens who would like to share expertise and experience
- anyone who's good at fund-raising (we need money for trees)

We now have a facebook page: 'Food for a Future'

Contact: David Hodges, [phone], 0211393925

[Helen Coyte]

Hi David, I've only just read your discussion and am interested to hear more. My kids are at Mt Albert primary and there is a wealth of space there for fruit trees. I know they have some scheme in the pipelines with regards to the vegie gardens, but it would be fantastic to get some sort of orchard planted. I don't have any real expertise to offer, but I'd like to know more and help out if I can. Thanks, Helen

[David Hodges]

Hi Helen,

due to limited time to write funding applications, we have decided to just apply for funding to hire another gardening mentor (currently we have 3 volunteers, with limited time available) to give free expert advice to schools and we are not applying for funding for trees at this stage so I'm sorry we can't help you with that.

Eden-Albert community board has been quite generous with funding for fruit trees with other groups (e.g. Mt. Eden Village People) so if you apply to them directly in the next week or so (I think the deadline was Friday but they said they'd accept applications a week or so after the deadline) you might be able to get some money for trees at Mt. Albert school. Also one of the other schools said that Kings Plant Barn gave them quite a few trees for free! :-)

Good luck!

David

[Kate and Olly]

I am tied up with another meeting that night which is a shame as I am curious to come along and get a feel for how best to pitch these sorts of things to schools. I think schools are potentially a good source of alternative thinking and practice when it comes to the environment and transition. Especially when a few of the schools in my area are members of enviroschools.org.nz.

Keep the dates coming and I will try to hook up sometime. Not that I can help you in Mt. Albert but perhaps your initiative can help Devonport jump start something similar.

[David Hodges]

Hi Kate and Olly,

I'm not sure when the next meeting will be at this stage but you're welcome to ring me if you'd like to talk about it. One of my volunteers is an environmental education who's done a fair bit of work with kids teaching kids - a great way to make a limited teaching budget go further! :-)

[Pete Russell]

Hello David. I would like to have come to your meeting. How was it? Is there any way Ooooby could support your initiative?

[David Hodges]

Hi Pete,

we're having another public meeting Wednesday 19 May 7-9pm in the McGarry Room, Owairaka School Hall, 113 Richardson Rd, Owairaka/Mt. Albert

I've expanded the area of the project to include Pt. Chev and surrounding suburbs as well as Mt. Albert. If I get volunteer mentors in other areas I will include those areas also.

[David Hodges]

Hi Pete. The meeting went well thanks - we had 5 people attending - all experts in this area (and several apologies from people who would have liked to come but couldn't).
So we now have two volunteer mentors for schools.
I am keen to get more mentors, so we can help more schools. So I want to make sure the organic gardening community in Auckland knows about us - any publicity we can get is good.
Also we are looking for good sources of heirloom fruit trees...

We will be holding another public meeting in two or three weeks - I'll try and confirm a date and venue within the next couple of days.

[David Hodges]

Hi Pete, I just noticed you're on Facebook so have posted to your Facebook page. Cheers! :-)