Grow Aotearoa ready to Live The Dream: with assistance
Wellington-based Grow Aotearoa is a new social enterprise working to help communities and neighbourhoods boost the
amount of fresh food they grow for their households.
Having successfully proven the role a hub organisation can play to boost collaboration and support grassroots projects
such as community gardens Grow Aotearoa is now seeking support via crowd-funding platform PledgeMe to take
implementation of their concept to the next level.
“The next level for Grow Aotearoa to accelerate our progress from 2014 is to take part in the Live the Dream programme
for social enterprise start-ups this summer, and to do that fully we’re seeking support,” says Grow Aotearoa’s Oliver
Bone.
A starting point for Grow Aotearoa for Oliver came from attending last year’s National Permaculture Hui in Wellington,
and his passion for finding a way for householders across the city to connect with food-growing initiatives. Since then
hosted a series of hui to identify key environmental issues and solutions and look for ways to engage youth and hard to
reach communities.
“Grow Aotearoa now has a team of really committed people with skills that mean we can enable and equip individuals and
groups who might be struggling with hurdles like volunteer recruitment or hands-on direction and assistance,” says
Oliver.
“Through putting team members through the Live the Dream programme we’re going to be able to gear up Grow Aotearoa with
a set of tools, mentors and networks to fulfill our vision to be a self-sufficient enterprise that is designed to
support kaitiakitanga, collaboration, food security and community development”.
“We want to be transforming backyards and public green spaces into thriving food forests, gardens and orchards. We want
to be working with government, and business and local councils to bring together different groups to co-create projects
that are accessible to involvement from the general public”.
Grow Aotearoa’s ambitions include setting up physical hubs located nationwide and a virtual hub through a website,
social media and mail-outs. Its first product/service is holding working bee event – also known as a ‘permaculture
blitz’ - to establish new food-growing sites over the space of a weekend.
The current PledgeMe campaign is looking to raise $3500 to cover Live the Dream expenses and offers a range of rewards
for various levels of donation – right up to a permaculture design consultation for your property. Any donations over
and above the funding goal will be used to support Grow Aotearoa’s first community projects.
ENDS