It’s so hard to get back in gear after the holidays!
But lot’s is going on so I should try and keep up on the blog!
On Thursday, Wes and I and Shirley (BOB CEO) met with Vancity to discuss how they can help move the development of an urban farming network forward. It was a great meeting and they rally seemed to have a keen interest in contributing. They are looking towards increasing their investment in the local/organic food sector, of which urban farming is a part. They are also trying to increase the % of their investment which has a community impact. They gave us some good feedback and may be able to contribute some funds to develop indicators and carry out the working groups. They also made us aware of the Community Projects Grant and their Demonstrating Value program, both which would be very beneficial to what we are doing. Tomorrow we do a Demonstrating Value workshop. I’m curious to see what that will bring.
We also met with the City last Tuesday to see how they could help our work and how we could help the city meet some of its sustainability goals. That was also a promising meeting. One of the things of most interest in that conversation was the idea of indicators, which we can use to track the effectiveness of any work we do, and the City can use such information to demonstrate the economic and food security contributions of urban farming.
It is exciting to see this interest from Vancity and the City itself which I hope leads to some significant changes in city policy and increased funding for urban farming initiatives.