Cultivating Community is about people, communities, gardening, farming, the environment and food. Our mission is to work with diverse communities to create fair, secure and resilient food systems. Our core purpose is to provide access to healthy, culturally appropriate food for people and families living on low incomes in the context of a whole of community approach to food security. Our activities and services include: community gardens; school food gardens; food waste & composting; and food systems projects & partnerships. Our newest and most innovative approach to reducing food waste is the Food Know How program, which works with Yarra City Council in Victoria to keep food waste out of the rubbish bins of the municipality’s households, cafes, and offices.
We choose to focus on productive mornings, rather than restless evenings! Cultivating Community is a “boots-on-the-ground” organisation that’s always willing to try new approaches for working with people to address the challenges of our current food culture and system. For our organisation, we’re excited by the opportunity of closing the regional food loop by recapturing food waste and reinvesting it back into the ecological and community systems that produce delicious, local food. We stay up late thinking of how we can make this process work for people – everyday people that have households and businesses to look after – everyday people that face everyday challenges. The problems of our current food system are the opportunities for a better food future.
Our one wish for our Australian food future is for all people and the land that supports them to return as the priorities for our national food system. We believe in investing in people, the land and the local systems that connect them to food. From sowing seed to composting, we see that the success and quality of our society has been, is, and always will be inherently linked to how we value food. We wish for the inherent value of food to be remembered and celebrated at all of our tables – filling our lives with respect for farmers and the land, equity for those who struggle to afford or access good food, and investment into the future resiliency of our natural resources.
We proud of the fact that we have been working with the community for the past fifteen years around the topics of community gardening, school gardening, food waste & composting, and food systems projects. This work has been pioneering and we are proud to be one of many groups doing such work over the past two decades. For our organisation, we are proud to build program and practices that start at the grassroots level and have the ability to be shared and scaled for broader success. This pioneering and open-source approach to a better food future is what we’re most proud of.
Anything grown in a community garden, home garden, nature-strip, or school garden! We love food that has a story about the farmer or gardener connected to it – we think you can taste the difference!
Cultivating Community is always happy to work with new groups and individuals in creating a better food future. We are always on the lookout of new groups, projects, and volunteers. You can check out our work at: www.cultivatingcommunity.org.au and www.foodknowhow.org.au to learn more!
