My FED Farm: 2022 About and Impact Report
A detailed impact report and overview of the My FED Farm urban agriculture program and its 2022 community achievements.
ABOUT
My FED Farm was designed to increase food security for vulnerable individuals who face barriers to accessing fresh, healthy, and affordable food. Each recipient receives a free edible garden kit, including grow bags, seedlings, seeds, and educational resources.
The program began in response to COVID-19 and, now in its third year, continues to address economic hardship and social isolation that persists within our community.
From empowering folks to grow their own food to providing an opportunity to engage in community food security and climate action, My FED Farm has brought people together from across Greater Victoria to share in the joy of gardening and community connection.
FED URBAN AGRICULTURE
My FED Farm is run by FED Urban Agriculture, a charity that is working to address food security in southern Vancouver Island by promoting sustainable food systems and enhancing community engagement. They do this by creating garden spaces, delivering educational programs, and promoting urban agriculture within the community. FED is a project of the Synergy Foundation.
WHY GARDEN KITS?
- Access fresh, nutritious produce
- Improve mental health
- Increase opportunity for intergenerational connection
- Take climate action
- Enhance community connection and resilience
- Increase sense of agency
- Insulate from supply chain volatility
- Develop life skills
- Grow diverse and culturally appropriate food
- Support food literacy
- Ease financial strain of purchasing fresh produce
- Create pollinator habitat
- Add urban green space
- Connect with nature
- Engage in hands-on learning
- Try something new
"We hope that programs like these will continue to inspire resilience and a sense of agency in our underserved populations."
- Brianna Stewart, FED Program Manager
OUR TEAM
Brianna Stewart, FED's Program Manager, is the heart and soul of this project. She worked tirelessly to make it happen, from coordinating community and household installations to shoveling soil and packing seeds. She is the reason that we know how many grow bags fit in a hatchback!
Ellie Gilchrist, FED's Project Coordinator, was the mastermind behind My FED Farm operations. Growing starts for recipients, delivering garden kits throughout the region, and coordinating our volunteers were only a few of the many to-do's on her plate!
TOPSOIL
Program Partner
We were so grateful to continue our partnership with Topsoil this year! Chris and his team have been providing incredible support to My FED Farm since the start of the program, from acting as a distribution site to sourcing our materials and watering our plant starts.
THANK YOU Topsoil Team!
CITY OF VICTORIA
Program Partner and Funder
A special thank you to the City of Victoria! Their ongoing support of local food systems and community resilience makes My FED Farm possible. This year, we received 2,344 plant starts through their award-winning Get Growing, Victoria! Program and funding to support operations through their Strategic Plan Grant.
THANK YOU City of Victoria!
United Way B.C.
Program Funder
Thanks to United Way British Columbia's Food Infrastructure Grant, we were able to grow plant starts in our new greenhouse, thereby expanding the variety of plants we offer. This funding also allowed us to extend our reach to more rural, remote, and First Nations communities.
THANK YOU United Way B.C.!
PROGRAM SPONSORS
A huge THANK YOU to our sponsors for their generous support!
CROWDFUNDING
We are so grateful for the generous support we received through our crowdfunding campaign this year.
These contributions from Cascadia Architects, Black Rock Oceanfront Resort, and countless individuals supported garden kits for 25 households, adding 375 lbs of homegrown produce to yards around Victoria.
THANK YOU to all our donors! BLACK ROCK OCEANFRONT RESORT CASCADIA ARCHITECTS
OUR VOLUNTEERS
Our program would not be possible without the support of our amazing volunteers.
From packaging seeds and shoveling soil to delivering garden kits throughout Greater Victoria, they are the heart and soul of this program.
THANK YOU to all our volunteers!
COMMUNITY GARDENS
To maximize the project's impact, we concentrated our efforts on creating and enlarging community gardens.
By supporting larger garden projects, we hope to provide a space for community connection while increasing long-term use of each garden.
This year we installed 2 new gardens and enlarged 5 existing gardens!
Who Received Garden Kits?
The support we received from the community allowed us to deliver garden kits to 236 households across the Southern Vancouver Island Region. These included Victoria, Sidney, Colwood, Sooke, Port Renfrew and more!
Our collaboration with community partners allowed us to reach a wider range of recipients this year.
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
- 236 Garden Kits Provided Across Greater Victoria
- 708 Planters Delivered
- 585 People Directly Benefiting From My FED Farm
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
- 16 Volunteers Engaged
- 14 Community Organization Partners
- 3 Indigenous Nation Community Garden Partners
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
- 14,000+ Seeds & Plant Starts
- 2 ½ Dump Trucks of Soil Delivered
- 5,568 Pounds of Annual Food Growing Capacity
OUR CUMULATIVE IMPACT*
- 116 Volunteers Engaged
- 22,024 Pounds of Potential Food Grown
- 95,880 Seed Packs and Plant Starts Donated
- 29 Community Partners
- 2,784 People directly benefited
- 1,137 Garden Kits
- 6 Indigenous Nation Partnerships
- 3,866 Planters
- 13 Trucks of Soil
- 3 Years of the Program
*impact over three years of My FED Farm
"I found the lovely felt bags full of soil from FED very useful and somewhat good at battling garden pests such as as slugs and snails, which seem to have difficulty getting into the plants within the bags.
Also, because I live in an apartment, with no previously established garden space, these bags have made it easy for me to grow food near my deck and in spots where no soil currently exists."
- Garden recipient
WHAT'S GROWING ON?
This year, we sent out a monthly newsletter to support garden recipients through the growing season. It featured:
- Grow bag-specific gardening tips
- Stories and photos from other recipients
- Gardening resources
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! (Lettuce tell you how we really feel!)
Our garden is wonderful, and when we look out our window and see it, it brings us so much joy! What immense pleasure, and we need to tell you how grateful we are.
Thank you for having this program and allowing us to participate, it makes us feel welcomed and part of the cure. And also, it feels really good to grow, and it makes me want to get up each morning. So thank you."
- Garden recipients
BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS
We have been working to reduce barriers to participating in the program, including by:
- Offering both paper and digital applications
- Elevating gardens with pallets for those with mobility issues
- Delivering garden kits to recipients' homes
- Sharing gardening accessibility resources
- Bringing along bilingual team members when possible
"The impact gardening has on me is 24/7 happiness that I'm growing my own food, as well as the positive impact on my mental health. I am excited to get up in the morning to check the garden and talk to the plants and thank them for growing and getting strong for me!
I felt so good after the first few days of this garden from My FED Farm, I volunteered to deliver gardens so other people could have this feeling too."
- Garden recipient and volunteer
STORIES FROM THE STRAWBERRY PATCH
Students Helping Women Fleeing Violence
Through an amazing partnership between the Women's Transition House and Claremont High, FED provided a new community garden that will be tended by Claremont students and then turned into delicious meals for women fleeing domestic violence.
STORIES FROM THE STRAWBERRY PATCH
Cooking Classes from the VIHA Garden
The lovely folks that run Vancouver Island Health Authority's housing sites have turned their My FED Farm community gardens into much more than just gardens. Residents are eagerly invested in the wellbeing of the plants, receive cooking classes with the produce they've grown, and use gardening as a mental health support.
This year we added another 15 planters to their gardens.
STORIES FROM THE STRAWBERRY PATCH
Garden Delivery with the Language of Home
One of our most memorable partnerships this year was with Le Relais Francophone, an organization that helps newcomers with language barriers.
We found out one of our recipients spoke Spanish only, so our volunteer brought her partner (a fluent Spanish speaker!) along for the delivery.
It turned out that our recipient was from the same region in Colombia that our volunteer translator had spent several months living in. Our recipient was over the moon and so were the volunteers!
The experience was so lovely that the volunteers returned a second time to talk more about everything from tomatoes to Colombian arepas.
STORIES FROM THE STRAWBERRY PATCH
Being a Recipient & a (Fantastic) Volunteer
What started as a volunteer shortage this year turned into a beautiful full-circle moment when several of our recipients eagerly volunteered to help us deliver gardens.
Their generosity and enthusiasm made the experience much richer for so many – and deepened our ability to weave reciprocity into our operations.
"Being a volunteer has been very rewarding for me for a variety of reasons:
- Bringing happiness and joy to people, as well as impacting others in a positive way, all in the name of food and love.
- Lifting the gardens (although not heavy they had weight) was like a walk in the forest... a small effort for a glorious time.
- Meeting people like me who volunteered to make sure others had access to these gardens.
I was happy being a garden recipient, but after volunteering I realized that my happiness really comes from helping others get their own My FED Farm garden!"
- Garden volunteer
My FED Farm
Thank you to everyone who made another season of this project a success
www.get-fed.ca @fedurbanag
Document Images
(1)