CCG's pop-up giveaways!

This week on the blog, I’ve decided to switch it up a bit! Rather than recap our week, I’ll be doing a spotlight on an ongoing project that we’ve been working on - our pop-up giveaways around campus! 

The giveaways are based on an initiative that the CCG used to do (pre-covid), where the farm stand would be set up somewhere on campus to give away free food! One of our board members, Liam, heard about this from one of our volunteers who’s been around the garden for a while, and brought the idea to a board meeting in the fall. As you may recall, our farm stand was broken in September, so at first we were trying to fix the stand before we started the giveaways. We realized that fixing the farm stand is a project that we’d have to come back to in the Spring, but we still wanted to do giveaways, so we decided to just start booking a table and doing pop-ups! The way it works is that we pick a day/time in the week that works for at least a couple of board members and staff, book a table and a few chairs, then schedule a harvest for the morning of the giveaway and someone to bike everything over from the garden to the table. At the table, we give everything away for free to anyone who comes by!

That’s it! No catch, no sign-ups, and folks can choose to chat with us or just grab something quickly on their way by! We’re just thrilled to be able to give more food away and let more people know about the garden and all the things we offer - a space to garden (whether renting plots or volunteering with us), a space to enjoy (everyone is welcome to walk around when the gate’s unlocked, and groups can use the space for free for events and get-togethers), and a space that exists on the belief that food should be shared (as well as accessible, decolonized, and joyful). Staff operate plots specifically for the purpose of giving food for free, and we love to be able to do that through the UVSS Food Bank and the tabling events we attend around campus, but it’s also been so awesome to have the opportunity to connect more directly with the people we are growing food for. 

And on that note, we want to hear from you! Is there something you think we should grow in the garden? Let us know! We’re starting to plan our garden for next season, and we’d love to look into different foods you want access to, especially if they’re not commonly found in grocery stores in Victoria! We’d love to work with you, if you’re interested in gardening yourself, or just think about how we can add new things to the plots that we run already. You can chat with us at the giveaway tables, come by the garden, send us a message on Instagram, or email me at [email protected]. 

We’ll be back out next week for another pop-up, but haven’t settled on a date quite yet. Keep an eye on our Instagram to stay updated on our giveaways and other work that we do! 

Happy gardening,
Jessi