Get Kilkenny Growing: Local community groups invited to apply for new €75k fund
COMMUNITY groups and voluntary organisations across Kilkenny are invited to apply for €75,000 of funding as part of a new Energia Get Ireland Growing and GIY fund 2019.
Groups and organisations have from today until January 18th 2019 to apply for grants, which will enable them to start or further develop a community food-growing project in their area.
The Energia Get Ireland Growing Fund will be split across three categories, ‘Sow’, ‘Grow’ and ‘Harvest’ with awards ranging from €500 to €2,000 with one group selected to receive €5,000. Together Energia and GIY will support at least 86 community food growing groups from all across the island of Ireland.
This is the sixth year of the fund, which has already supported over 500-community food growing projects to date, positively impacting over 140,000 people. €410,000 has been awarded over the last six years and this was distributed to projects all across the country.
The funding pool is now 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, any group who grow their own food, want to grow their own food and want to promote growing food.
Launching the initiative, GIY founder Michael Kelly said: “We are delighted to open the €75,000 2019 fund and look forward to rewarding the community champions who are putting food back at the heart of their communities. The Energia & GIY Get Ireland Growing Fund is one of the most creative awards in the area of food, and it is a real privilege to know that we can really help to make the most incredible food growing projects a reality for a huge number of people across Ireland.”
Some of the previous flagship projects include the Recovery Garden in Kilkenny (2017) and a grow garden for the Irish Wheelchair Association Centre in Carlow (2017) and last year’s overall winner of the Today Show fund of €5000 (2018),The Edible Landscape Project, a training and education initiative in Westport, Co. Mayo.
*For more details and to submit an application for ‘Energia Get Ireland Growing’ 2019 visit https://giy.ie/
