What's New at LifeCycles

LifeCycles AGM Meeting

Hello LifeCycles Members and Supporters:  

We are pleased to invite you to LifeCycles’ 18^th Annual General Meeting. 

Central Library meeting room

735 Broughton Street, Victoria

Wednesday, January 25^th

5:00 - 6:30pm 

Come meet our Staff, Board, and volunteers and hear how the organization is growing in 2012! 

 Thank you very much for your support!

Jared Giesbrecht

LifeCycles Board, Secretary

Urban Agriculture Volunteer Opportunities 2012

LifeCycles is looking for Diggers to help with our 2012 Garden Creation projects.

Diggers receive hands-on learning and mentorship while contributing volunteer time to community food gardening projects. LifeCycles will provide orientation in February and ongoing training throughout the year.

There will also be two positions available for our Culinary Garden Internships beginning February 2012.

Check out the Diggers page for details or email diggers@lifecyclesproject.ca

For more information and updates on this event click here.

After we tallied everything up, the Fruit Tree Project picked over 35,000 lbs of fruit in one season! Over 10,000 lbs of this fruit was redistributed to local food banks, which further redistributed the fruit to those in need: from single parents to the homeles.

Our Garden Creation work has led to the creation and support of 11 new gardens (4 of which were at local mental health residencies), and has helped low-income food bank users plant small container food gardens, learning how to grow their own food in the process!

Growing Schools, has started gardens in 43 schools, and has reached approximately 1000 students in the process, teaching them the basics of organic gardening through hands-on workshops (not including our summer camp and spring break programs)!

LifeCycles has done a lot of great work over the past year and we couldn't do that work without help from the comunity!  Your support goes a long way for LifeCycles--helping us purchase tools and supplies, coordinate our projects, and build relationship within the burgeoning urban agriculture movement here in Victoria.  Please help us continue to do good work in the community!

You can support our work in three easy ways:

By making a donation (click on our donate button in the left-hand column, or mail us a check at "LifeCycles Project Society 2-625 Hillside ave. Victoria, BC, V8T 1Z1)

By becoming a "Friend of LifeCycles" and making a monthly contribution of $10 or higher (email us at info@lifecyclesproject.ca if you would like to contribute in this manner)

By becoming a member (click on the membership link in the left-hand column.

Thank you for your support this Holiday Season!

LifeCycles is Growing and We're Looking For A New Home!

Volunteer for Growing Schools Fall Season!

The Fall session of Growing Schools is starting soon and we need your help!  Growing Schools is an exciting opportunity to work with children and youth in schools to learn about where our food comes from, the impacts of where it comes from and much much more.

Join us for Volunteer training October 22nd from 2 - 4pm.  Email Jeanette at growingschools@lifecyclesproject.ca to find out the location and RSVP.   

All knowledge levels welcome! Snacks and training will be provided. A criminal record check is a must and we can proivde you a letter so you can get it done free of charge.

Looking forward to working with you!

LifeCycles and CRD Win $25,000 Keg Grant for Growing Schools!

Thank you to all who voted for us in the Keg's "Thanks A Million" campaign. We are thrilled to announce we've won $25,000 for our Growing Schools project! 

Growing Schools: From Classroom to Table is a joint project between the CRD and LifeCycles Project. The project aims to educate young people about food, health and climate change by constructing an organic food garden on school grounds. The gardens act as outdoor classrooms - they are educational tools used to engage students, teachers, parents and community members on how to grow food and provide "hands on" learning for students of all ages. Educational workshops are hosted on-site, throughout the school year, and aligned with Provincial educational learning outcomes in subjects of math, science, personal health, and social science.

With this grant, LifeCycles will:

- reach more than 1,000 students through Growing Schools workshops;

- build 5 school gardens around the region; and

- help the CRD launch a new food and climate change educational campaign for households.

If your school would like to start a garden and participate in this project, please contact Jeanette at 250-383-5800 and growingschools @lifecyclesproject.ca

Diggers first garden creation project!

Click on the link to see how to build a backyard food garden!

Grow A Row

The concept is simple: there are lots of people growing fantastic food in their backyards, on their balconies, in the boulevards on their streets and in community gardens. There are moments in every garden when there are simply too many tomatoes to eat. Meanwhile, there are plenty of people in our community who don’t have access to this sort of wonderful fresh produce.

The Grow A Row program seeks to distribute extra produce from local gardens to local people in Victoria through centres such as Our Place Society, school food programs and community food banks.

We are looking for gardneres with extra produce to donate, folks who would be willing to transport produce to drop-off points, as well as places that could use some fresh garden donations. Please send us an email if you have food or time to donate, or if you'd like to recieve donations!

Follow the link below to find out more!

Link...   - 2013-09-29

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