FoodFriends: Building Community Through Food Initiatives

Lancaster Guardian

FoodFutures community food initiative has a project called FoodFriends.   It's like a lottery where people put £5 a month in and are in with the chance of winning a £30 food voucher with local independent businesses each month.  The money raised each month goes towards funding The Plot at Old Holly Farm near Garstang and at White Lund - basically it's a market garden that grows seasonal organic food and delivers to people across the district.

Transcript

00:00The plot started five years ago so we rented these paddocks from the farmer here and yeah we went

00:07through a whole process to start to grow veg and fruit and herbs here. So we have Dennis who's our

00:12grower and we have a volunteer session every Wednesday which you can see behind me but we're

00:17essentially we're a community supported agriculture scheme so we have members who are crop sharers

00:22and they have a subscription with us for the season and then they get a share of the produce

00:27that was produced here. We do whatever needs doing on the day because obviously through the year it

00:33changes you know it might be digging out dock plants early in the season or at the moment it's weeding

00:41because the weather is just going crazy and making things grow so quickly but it's just I just love

00:51it because when you go home at the end of the day it you look back and you can see what you've done

00:58and you think I've achieved something here. Through our experiences of running the plot we understood

01:04how hard it was for small local producers to get food to the customer or to the people that wanted

01:10to eat the food so we are now part of Gather which is a collaboration of about 10 local producers and

01:17we come together through Gather which is a food hub to market and sell our produce together.

01:23The food friend scheme is a small society lottery and our members give £5 a month so just just over

01:29the price of a coffee and then they're in a monthly draw and we draw six prizes every month and these

01:35are £30 vouchers to be spent with other independent local food businesses so we're trying to create that

01:41kind of secular flow of money around the district and the food friend scheme was set up to provide

01:49an independent source of funding for projects such as this so that they're not reliant on grant funding

01:53and it was a way of enabling local residents who are passionate about local food and bringing back

01:59our food production to our district to enable them to support the setup of this sort of thing.

02:06At Christmas just gone my grown-up son who's in his 40s now it's like what what do you give him for

02:14Christmas he's got a family he's got stuff that he needs there's nothing really and then I thought

02:22I know what I can do I can enroll him on the system I saw his name goes into a draw

02:28and so I paid for that to happen in July his name came up so even a nice parcel of food from the place

02:38so it's just wonderful way of getting people interested I think and it's not just us lot coming

02:47gardening it's about the wider world knowing about it and and doing a bit to themselves they might not

02:54be able to come and garden but they could support and food friends. The plot and food friends are

03:01very much integral to our to the food futures gold campaign so we'd really like to get this award for

03:08the district because it it's a way of recognizing all of the fantastic work that's going on in all

03:13sorts of places to provide access to healthy food for local residents and the plot and food friends are

03:20very much part of that so they're pioneer projects which are trying to change the cultures blaze the

03:25way so that we can have more people trained more people able to grow within the district and that

03:31these projects can be financially stable as well for the longer term. To become a food friend you go to

03:37the website which is foodfutures.org.uk forward slash food friends and you can sign up for a very simple

03:44process where you sign up to go cardless and then we'll be in touch with you we'll let you know what

03:50number you are in the lottery and you'll get a monthly newsletter from us telling you what your

03:56contributions are funding and obviously we'll also let you know if you win a prize

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