Food Growing and Community Meal Spring Small Grants Programme

• Are you part of a community group, manage a community garden or green space?
• Would you like to attract more local families, particularly those on low-incomes, to your project?
• Would you like to offer a food growing workshop or organise a community meal/food event as part of the Platinum Jubilee Celebrations, Lewisham’s London Borough of Culture or Good to Grow Day?

About

Lewisham Local is offering small grants to community groups and charitable organisations to deliver additional food growing workshops, organise a community meal, picnic or food-based event this spring in line with Lewisham’s Borough of Culture programme which aims to encourage mass participation in growing. We have a small pot of £1750 to allocate.

How much can I apply for? 

Projects can apply for a grant of up to £250.

The grant is budgeted to cover one workshop or event but can be spread out over more sessions if budget allows. The budget can include:

• Workshop facilitation
• Event space hire
• Workshop/event resources (such as seeds, plants, tools)
• Printing publicity 
• Refreshments
• Travel expenses if necessary

Aims

This small grants programme has the following aims:

• Increase the number of people growing food, cooking or eating together in their local area in Lewisham, particularly families and individuals on low-incomes and those groups who have been impacted most by the pandemic
• Increase understanding of where our food comes from, benefits of cooking, growing and eating together
• Build new connections within communities by offering spaces for people to come together to enjoy food
• Enable groups to get involved with the Borough of Culture mass participation activities through food
• Enable groups to run an activity that they wouldn’t usually have the budget to offer
• Increase awareness of local food growing, gardening, cookery and community meal opportunities in Lewisham.

Why are we offering this small grants programme?

Food insecurity and loneliness have increased due to Covid, whilst people’s health and wellbeing have also been negatively impacted. The aim of this small grants programme is to enable groups to organise an event, workshop or activity that responds to these issues. Lewisham Local provided six small grants to run food growing workshops in October 2021 and received encouraging feedback from groups who received a grant about the difference these sessions made. As a suggestion from those groups, we wanted to replicate these grants to support groups to run activities in the spring.

This second programme includes setting up or hosting a community meal, picnic or event as additional opportunities to socialise, exchange, and get involved around food which ties into the Borough of Culture mass participation activities and the Queen’s Jubilee weekend.

Criteria

The grant is to fund activities that meet the following criteria:

• Open to registered charities and constituted groups based in Lewisham with an annual income under £50,000. Individuals can apply to offer a project but must find a local group to host the money and cover insurance and policies
• Organisations must have public liability insurance and an organisational bank account
• Organisations and groups must have a safeguarding policy and appropriate checks if working with children

• Activities must take place in Lewisham borough before the end of June 2022
• Activities must offer food and refreshments as part of the offer and be free (at least to participants on a low income)
• Groups must demonstrate how they will reach out to low-income families and those disproportionately impacted by Covid 
• Groups must provide information to Lewisham Local on the scheduled activities to promote through our network
• Organisations must source their own workshop facilitator.

What we would like to see

We anticipate receiving a high number of applications. We will use the following criteria to help decide which projects to award:

• The project provides opportunities to attract new people to learn about food growing or attend a community meal/s or event in the community to eat together
• Workshops/ activities/ events that encourage learning and reciprocity rather than a ‘user/recipient’ perspective. For more information on this, we recommend the active food citizenship framework. To learn more about active food citizenship here and you can find a toolkit here.
• Workshops/ activities/ events that encourage the ongoing involvement of participants at the project – through volunteering or attending future events etc
• Workshops/events/activities that are planned, led by and for community members/local residents

Monitoring

This is a small grant so reporting will be brief. Projects funded will be asked to keep a record of participant numbers, keep a record of receipts as evidence of how funds were spent, and provide a short feedback report describing:

• How many people connected through the activity?
• How did people feel taking part/at the end of the event?
• What went well/what you would do differently next time?
• Any learning as a project or feedback from participants you’d like to share.

This can be provided as a written update with photos and quotes or a video recording (no more than 5 minutes).

Deadline to apply: 11.59pm Thursday 7th of April 2022

To apply, please submit your responses to the questions below via the form below

Please note. Applicants can alternatively submit responses as a short video recording answering the questions if you prefer. Videos should be no more than 2 minutes per response. Please send videos or a link to funding@lewishamlocal.com and complete the initial contact details on the form below.

If you have any questions about the form, or the grants, please contact funding@lewishamlocal.com

Process

1. Complete the online application form or send videos or a link to funding@lewishamlocal.com no later than 11.59pm Thursday 7th of April 2022
2. You will be notified of the decision within two weeks of the deadline 
3. Successful projects will be asked to complete a Terms and Conditions form and provide relevant additional information 
4. Successful projects will be awarded their funding by BACS payment within seven working days of receipt of the Terms and Conditions form
5. Projects must have be completed by the end of June 2022
6. A brief feedback report will be requested at the end of the programme, which should be returned within a month of receipt.

If you have any questions or queries regarding this opportunity. Please contact funding@lewishamlocal.com