The Foodies get REAL

The Rossland Foodies and their mission to get a community garden established in town have become a little more real over the winter, both in name and project. 

For starters the “Foodies” have officially become Rossland REAL Food. “I can’t stop using “The Foodies”, but we have changed our name to Rossland REAL Food. The REAL is capitalized, but I can’t remember exactly what it stands for now,” explained Rachel Roussin.”We were originally going to call ourselves 'Rossland’s Food Group' but Rossland isn’t really a food group [laughs].”

As serious as their name has gotten, real progress on the gardens coming to fruition this summer have also gotten much more serious. With a plan to have seeds in the ground by the end of May, the multi-year project could get accelerated into a first year project following this Monday’s regular council meeting. The REAL Food group is pursuing a $20,000 "2010 Age-Friendly Community Planning and Project Grant" through the Senior's Housing and Support Initiative. Community garden projects are permitted under this grant, which would dramatically speed up the building process in Jubilee Park. The grant application itself must be submitted by a municipal government, however, so the group went to city council Monday night, and on staff’s recommendation and got the city to sign and submit the grant on their behalf. 

Thus far, the group has been operating as a largely volunteer effort with a modest budget. That volunteerism will remain and grow if the grant is received--and the group's plans will accelerate.

“It’s specifically for the community garden,” explained Roussin. “Currently we have $5,000 to build the community garden. It’s actually quite an expensive endeavour: the fence alone--if we get it done by a professional--is going to cost $3,500. I actually just did the budget, and it’s really easy to blow through $20,000 to build a really nice community garden.”

One addition the garden would see this year if the grant is received is a shade structure or gazebo, designed to provide relief from the elements for gardeners. In addition to a physically larger garden, the group also plans to incorporate a community awareness and education aspect into the project. As much as they plan to grow fresh vegetables, they also hope to grow an environmentally-aware consciousness around gardening in town.

“One exciting thing that we will do if we get the $20,000 grant is, with the new shade or gazebo structure we want to make it into a demonstration on water management in the vegetable garden. We’ll put removable gutters and rain barrels on it. In our budget we have allocated money towards rain barrels, gutters, irrigation systems because in Rossland a lot of people feel like we can’t have rain barrels because we don’t have gutters. There are quite a few community members, though, who have had a lot of success with removable gutters and barrels.”

Seeing an opportunity to partner up with another local environmental initiative to better promote both of their missions.

“We thought this would be a good opportunity for us to match up with the Water Task Force and do a whole bunch of water management workshops. It doesn’t have to end at water management, either: we can do things that are related to the environment. That’s one thing that would really shine through if we got this grant. It would really show in a neat little picture that this is exactly what you can do right in your own yard.”

With or without the grant, the Rossland REAL Food Group is charging ahead on their mission and will be planting this spring. The group is always looking for new volunteers and is also currently looking for folks who would like to rent a plot in the garden for the inaugural year. For more info contact Ami Haworth at jouney_outside@yahoo.ca.

The group expects to hear back on its $20,000 grant application by mid-April, along with several other grants currently out there.

“We have various grant applications in, and we’re just waiting to see what we’re going to get. We won’t be discouraged if we don’t get this grant: it will just mean certain projects get put off to next year or the year after. If we got this, though, it would mean we could go ahead with the big Kahuna right away.”