Sometimes gardening projects take a village to complete.
I just found out that Fiskars, the garden tool company is sponsoring “Project Orange Thumb” to encourage community garden projects. Fiskars will award up to $1500 in gardening tools, Project Orange ThumbSM t-shirts for garden members/volunteers and up to $800.00 for other materials such as plants, seeds, mulch, etc. to the winner. The application deadline is approaching- February 15, 2008 and winners will be notified by March 15, 2008.
Fiskars in encouraging youth groups, schools, camps, community centers, treatment centers and community garden groups to apply for the grant. “Gardens and/or gardening projects geared toward community involvement, neighborhood beautification, sustainable agriculture and/or horticultural education are eligible,” according to the Fiskars web site. If you are an individual working on your own home project, forget about it. This is for group projects only. If you need some inspiration, take a look at this article titled, “The New Suburbanism” by Dan Chiras and Dave Wann about creating shared community areas from wasted spaces in your neighborhood.
Sounds like a great opportunity! Go to the Fiskars website for more information
Hi Fiona,
Thank you for your comment. You will need to contact the garden product companies directly as I don’t have products to distribute. Thanks again for your visit!
hi there my name is fiona and i am involed in a commuinity group,we are a group of mums that dont work and we meet up weekly and do different things, are kids are in creche, we are wanting to starting growing fruit and veg and even flowers to make our community looking nice, we are wanting a bit of advice to get us on the write path on how to look onwards with this. we where wondering as being in a commuinity group would you be willing to send some samples i,e bulbs, seeds etc. we would really appricate it.
looking forward to hearing from you
email scotland_chick@hotmail.co.uk
thanks again
fiona
Welcome Sean! My neighborhood is more or less in the first group level on the list. We have neighborhood watch, yearly block parties, a group of kids who are dog sitters for various families on the block, and there is a “common house” where the kids hang out- mine!. This common house is not official, it just worked out that way.
I’m not such a die-hard that I desire communal living. I do enjoy the free enjoyment of a private yard but would like to see the common areas- medians planted out with edible plants and such. And of course, neighbors interacting and walking. I’m lucky that my neighborhood is very walker=friendly and I’ve met most of my neighbors either out in the garden or out for a walk.
Stop by again. I’ll go visit your blog now.
Thanks Shirley for sharing “The New Suburbanism” site. I think sustainability in the future relies on the behaviors mentioned on the site being incorporated back into our social fabric and this will be a huge paradigm shift for most Americans. Moving towards these changes takes alot of effort, but can yield huge payoffs. We live in a suburban neighborhood that I consider to be a “hybrid” between the impersonal suburban street and more of a neighborhood community, even being half way there makes it a fun street to be on (we watch out for each other, have an occasional neighborhood BBQ, etc.) Not perfect, but, its a work in progress!
Cheers!
Sean