A Co Clare school has been named among the Get Ireland Growing Fund competition winners.
Run by GIY (Grow It Yourself) in partnership with Energia, the winners of the grants from a fund of €70,000 for 2017 have been confirmed.
The teams behind 85 community projects are all being granted with funds for their unique plans. Groups from Kerry to Donegal and beyond will be presented with their funding amounts ranging from €500 to €2,000.
In Clare a funding award goes to the Barefield National School.
The team there says: “We have a very small fruit/veg garden which is overgrown. Lately, all our funds have been put into updating IT systems, Literacy & Maths Programmes, & developing pupils academic potential.
Our eye has been taken off how important it is to teach and inspire children how to grow their own fruit and veg. Our school is dedicated to encouraging and developing the full potential of each child, but funding always becomes an issue. It would be so fantastic to have money specifically for our garden.”
Commenting at the awards ceremony, the founder of GIY Michael Kelly said, “We are delighted to award the recipients of the 2017 Energia Get Ireland Growing fund. Today is one of those dream days at work where we help 85 community groups from all across Ireland to get their food growing initiatives underway.
The number of applications we received this year has been the highest amount ever received; these motivating and creative plans, which have been outlined will have real impact for people in parishes, towns, villages and cities across 31 counties. These types of projects usually struggle to find funding and supports and we are very pleased that GIY in partnership with Energia can now support these groups to grow food in their own communities.”
This is the fourth year of the fund, which has already supported more than 400 community food growing projects to date, positively impacting over 100,000 people. €270,000 has been awarded over the last four years and this was distributed to projects all across the country.