Hello Ocean Grove Community Garden friends and members,

We will not be having a working bee at the community garden at the end of September, however, I would like to invite you to attend  a very exciting world first, community initiative called Farm My School.

Farm My School (FMS) is a not-for-profit partnership between Farm My School Ltd, Bellarine Community Health and Bellarine Secondary College. The initiative is being supported by Bellarine Landcare, Barwon Water, the City of Greater Geelong, Feed Me Bellarine, Plantfullness, Reground, Bellarine Bayside. 

“Imagine a school that can feed its community. A farm built within a school.” 

Farm My School is activating and transforming Bellarine Secondary into a vibrant community hub by building a 1.5 acre permaculture market garden in the middle of the school.

The Farm My School takes a whole-school / community approach to connecting young people and their families to regenerative, localised food production and consumption by establishing a commercial permaculture farm and outdoor classroom on school grounds.

Farm My School initiative will enable young people and their families to eat well by increasing healthy eating and drinking, increasing food security, and strengthening the Bellarine community’s preparedness in the face of climate change.

Farm My School will integrate ‘hands-on-learning’ into the curriculum, creating ‘real world’ experiential learning opportunities for students, staff and the broader community. Students will learn to grow, harvest, prepare and cook fresh produce from the farm and organic veggie boxes will be sold at an affordable price to the school community and school canteen.

Farm my school would like to invite you to volunteer at Farm My School’s BUILD A FARM IN A DAY Festival. This is a community building initiative so we hope the community will come together to help bring Farm My School to life!

The aim of the BUILD A FARM IN A DAY Festival is for the community to come together to create a 1.5 acre permaculture market garden at Bellarine Secondary College, Drysdale. But we need many hands-on deck to make it happen!

What are the benefits for volunteers?

• You will meet Costa Georgiadis from Gardening Australia and listen to some fantastic music
• You will have Free entry to a No-dig garden workshop
• You will meet new people and have a fun day out
• You will support the community by helping bring Farm My School to life!

Farm My School would love you to come along and volunteer some time to this wonderful community initiative.

There is a ‘call out’ for volunteers. It is free to register via humanitix: https://events.humanitix.com/farm-my-school-volunteer-registration

We hope the Ocean Grove Community Garden Community can support this wonderful community initiative.

Best Wishes,

Fiona