Deadline For Applications For €75,000 ‘Get Ireland Growing’ Fund Looming
GIY and Energia are calling on people across to the country to get growing their own food in 2018 and are offering all budding growers the opportunity to apply for funding from the ‘Energia Get Ireland Growing’ €75,000 funding pool.
Grants from the Energia Get Ireland Growing Fund will be split across three categories ‘Sow’, ‘Grow’ and ‘Harvest’ with awards ranging from €500 to €2,000 plus one very special group will receive a massive €5,000 grant for their project. Together GIY and Energia will support at least 85 community food growing groups in 2018 and enable food growing by community and voluntary organisations all across Ireland including Northern Ireland. The application period is open until 19th January, 2018.
Head of Community Development at GIY Karen O’Donohoe says that the ‘Get Ireland Growing’ initiative has to date supported almost 500 community food growing projects, positively impacting over 120,000 people. “We are delighted to say that so far €340,000 has been awarded to groups over the last five years and this was distributed to projects right across the country. There are just a few weeks left to apply for 2018 funding, so we are urging all groups and organisations to get their applications into us via giy.ie.”
The funding pool is open to any community group, school, NGO or Not for Profit, community garden or allotment group, GIY group, hospital, crèche, direct provision centre, men’s shed or any group. The projects should all have an element of outreach, promotion and inclusivity and should have some plan to encourage more people to grow their own food. The deadline for applications is January 19th, 2018 and applications can be made online via GIY.ie.
GIY also provides supports and opportunities for knowledge exchange between the projects, helping the best ideas to be shared. All the projects remain part of the GIY network in the long term, giving them access to other GIY resources and additional groups and projects, creating a long-term legacy.
Fantastic initiative right across the country have received support from past funds, including, a grow garden for the Irish Wheelchair Association Centre, the provision of tools and seeds for the Horticulture course at the Ballymun Adult Read and Write Scheme, project funding for an inner city urban food growing project in Cork city with Mad About Cork, a food growing project for Galway Simon’s Residential Service ‘Tuí Bhrian’ in Galway City, a food growing initiave in a young persons probation centre in Cork; a vegetable garden for asylum seekers in Clonakilty, Co Cork, a horticultural project for unemployed men in Waterford that supplies salads to restaurants and a community garden to reduce isolation on Inishbofin island to name but a few.
The successful applicants will be celebrated at a gala event, which will be held at the home of GIY, GROW HQ in Waterford, in March 2018. For further details and to submit an application for ‘Energia Get Ireland Growing’ 2018 see GIY.ie
