What is Grow It Local ?
Grow It Local is a year-round program for councils and communities which supports council’s key objectives relating to;
- Food waste diversion
- Positive sustainable living behaviours and local food systems
- Community engagement and capacity building
- Climate change resilience
- Health & well being
- Leadership and innovation
Our mission
Grow It Local is a mission to get more people growing, sharing and eating locally grown foods..
We believe
We believe that if more people grew food then we’d be happier and healthier, That we’d have bigger smiles and dirtier nails. That we’d be more connected to nature and our communities. That we’d compost more and waste less, and that life would be juicer and more delicious!
Program objectives
Grow It Local is a council-enabled and community-driven mission to;
- Reduce food waste to landfill
- Encourage positive sustainable living behaviours
- Build stronger and more resilient communities
- Enable positive health & wellbeing
- Promote the importance of eating fresh, nutrient dense and locally grown foods
- Help our enable our communities to reconnect with nature
How it works?
Grow It Local encompasses;
- the Grow It Local Seed Service which provides seasonal selections of free, heirloom and organic seeds curated by tv host, author and master grower Paul West (River Cottage Australia) alongside instructional how to grow videos that provide a background to the vegetable, health & nutritional info, recipes and tricks & tips to growing success
- Monthly ‘Ask Me Anything’ sessions with Paul where members can troubleshoot, ask questions and get advice
- Monthly live digital workshops that are designed to educate and inspire with high profile personalities such Costa (Gardening Australia), Ronnie Kahn (OzHarvest founder), Diggers Club, Rodney Dunn (Agrarian Kitchen), Paul West and others
- An growing catalogue of ondemand educational content
- A 'community marketplace’ through which local members can connect to swap and share excess produce
- Grow It Local Festival, an annual celebration of backyard, balcony, community garden and window-sill farmers and
- Real time data and third party impact reporting to quantify and quality that positive impacts that are being achieved in communities across a state, region, or LGA
What we provide
Partner councils are provided with a toolkit of localised communications assets for placement in council owned channels where possible throughout the year including;
- Free and unlimited access for member council residents to the Grow It Local digital community and assets
- Access to the database of growers participating in your area, available in real time via a digital dashboard
- Ready-made council branded communication assets, including print and digital materials, to help you promote the Grow It Local program and engage your local community
- PR assets including rights cleared images and media releases to undertake local media activity
- Assets for use in social media and council digital channels
- Project management tools to assist with the programs activation across your LGA
- Council logo placement on the growitlocal.com website
- Dedicated human resources provided by Grow It Local to support you in delivering the program locally
- Management of the digital community by Grow It Local via an email helpdesk, social media and e-newsletters
- Data and Impact Reporting in the form of real-time data on registrations and impacts in your LGA delivered via a localised council dashboard, and
- a localised annual impact report generated by a leading social market research organisation to help quantify and qualify the impacts that are being achieved
To learn more please get in touch via hello@growitlocal.com
