Hello, friends of Grow And Share.

Our latest newsletter is now available at http://www.thegardensedge.org/newsletters/Issue1_Vol3_Jan2012.pdf .  This includes information on volunteer needs, upcoming free gardening classes, and our combined Garden Plant Giveaway & Music Festival 2012.

For those of you interested in selling goods or handing out information during the festival, or sponsoring it outright, please review the supporter details flyer available at http://www.growandshare.org/festival/FestivalFlyer2012.pdf .

We look forward to helping you grow your gardens, eat well, and share your harvest in 2012!

Please spread the word… The Giveaway & Music Festival is confirmed for the afternoon of Saturday, April 14, 2012 at Norris Creek outdoor amphitheatre — a large new strategically close to Zebulon, Rolesville, Wake Forest, and Louisburg!

We’ll be holding our Garden Plant Giveaway and having gardeners sign their Pledge To Share during the event.  There will be live music, including Jo Gore And The Alternative and several other local bands.  Those of you who have attended our prior music festivals know that the local bands who perform are always fantastic!

If you’d like to be a sponsor or vendor, please contact us ASAP.  Sponsors get names on signage and press releases.  We have a press release going out in early February, and any sponsors confirmed at that point will be listed in the release.  Sponsorships at different levels determine the amount of info about your business that goes on the handouts, event signs, and the Grow And Share website: $100 include business/group name, $250 includes name and logo, and $500 includes name, logo, URL and phone number.

Vendors get a space to sell their wares or share information for $25 (if sign up before March 14th).  Local organizations, arts and crafts sellers, community groups, nonprofits, goods sellers, and garden suppliers are expected to be on hand for the festival attendees to “shop”.

Call 919.269.5414 or email info@growandshare.org to request a sponsor or booth registration form.

Hope you will come out and support Grow And Share’s projects and enjoy the day of music, community, food, garden education, and checking out local goods.

All proceeds from sponsorship fees and booth fees go to Grow And Share.

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NOTE:  We are seeking a “sound technician” with equipment to donate their time and use of said equipment.  If you know an expert sound person willing to donate, please have them contact us.  We will recognize their donation during the event and as appropriate for in-kind donations.

We also need volunteers to help work in the Welcome booth.  While the festival and parking are FREE, we do need to ensure folks get information as they arrive, and need pleasant volunteers to answer questions and direct them.

We are officially in 2012, and the growing season — ongoing in NC — will be kicking into high gear by March.

March you will be able to plant your beans, peas, and other seeds so that they will sprout when the ground gets warm enough.  Nature takes care of this!

April you can put out plants like tomatoes, peppers, cukes, etc. and Grow And Share will be holding a large Garden Plant Giveaway — combined with our annual Music Festival — on April 14th.  We hope you will all plan to come by on this special Saturday in April and pick up the plants you need while enjoying a day of chatting with expert gardeners.

A special THANK YOU again to Chad Kibbe and his scout troop for spending their January 1st of 2011 building the benches/shelving in the Tucker Greenhouse here in Zebulon.  All through 2011 we were able to grow plants to give away — both in Spring and in Fall.  The shelving is positioned for easy watering, and holds upwards of 8,000 plants!  This effort on Mr. Kibbe’s part expanded our space in the greenhouse so much that we were easily able to grow more than 14,000 plants *and* allow a girl scout from Cary to have space for an additional 2,000 to 3,000 plants of her own.

Also a big THANK YOU to RTI International for their grant, which allowed us to expand into Fall Plant Giveaways too, plus will be funding new garden installations continuing into 2012.

Thank you very much to all of you who brought food to the tables throughout NC through your volunteer efforts, gardening, and donations of funding and supplies.  We look forward to working with you more in 2012 to fight hunger.  Your time, money, and recycled supplies are helping us all to — as a team — roll up our sleeves and make a difference.  Let’s fill more hungry tummies this year!

Neighborhoods interested in growing together may contact us regarding installation of free or low-cost gardens throughout their neighborhood to get them growing together and feeding each other… let’s hope we can all eat better in 2012 and beat hunger by increasing the amount of local produce avaialable to give away hand-to-hand without folks worrying about breaking their budget to get it!

Welcome, dear friends, to 2012.

Kay and Frank Whatley

Co-founders of Grow And Share, a NC-based (and US-focused) non-profit.  (We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.)

Fighting Hunger from the Ground Up™

Now calling vendors and sponsors for the Grow And Share Music Festival - April 14, 2012 (Saturday) … email info@growandshare.org for more details. $25 booths, $100 to $500 sponsorships (includes logos on signage & posters)

The festival this year is much more than a music festival and community gathering! Our Garden Plant Giveaways will be a part of the festival, along with education booths for gardening, food, and health issues.

Promote your business and community-focus by sponsoring the festival. We have sponsorships that organizations, small businesses, and corporations can find economical. Call 919.269.5414 to find out more!

Lindsay (with Americorps & IFFS) is doing more gleaning tomorrow — Collards in Louisburg NC — and need a few more volunteers to help pick.

Your few hours tomorrow can make a big difference for a struggling family this Thanksgiving!  Help Inter-Faith Food Shuttle glean collards tomorrow in Louisburg. To meet our goal of 1 bunch each for 500 families, we need just 5 volunteers. Email localproduce@foodshuttle.org for details and to sign up!

Thank you for taking your time to help food get from this farm to many, many tables!

Hello, friends of Grow And Share!

A group of Grow And Share volunteers are preparing next year’s calendar. It will again have information on when to plant, what to plant, and tips.

We need your photos of gardening, growing, or sharing! Some of you have sent photos already, and we appreciate your sharing your gardening adventures.

We still need a few photos for some of the months.  You are Grow And Share’s community, and we’d like you to submit your photographs. The calendar group will select photos from those submitted, and if your photo is used it will be printed in the calendar with your caption and credit.  It can be of gardening, sharing food, group efforts, etc.  It can include plants or people or both.  (Please identify folks as best you can, and ensure they won’t mind having their photo printed in our nonprofit calendar.)

Choose your best gardening or food sharing photos, email them to kay@growandshare.org with a suggested caption and info on who took the photo. We will then notify you if your photo(s) is selected.

Please email your photos to kay@growandshare.org as soon as possible. High resolution is best, and you should be able to email me up to 5MB files. (One on each email, please.)

Thank you in advance for your response, and for growing food for your home and community!

Calendars will be available in early 2012, and will run March-to-March (focused on the Spring planting time when we usually see many of you).  They will be available to gardeners for a donation, all proceeds going to Grow And Share’s nonprofit efforts.  These will have lots of info to help you with your planting throughout the year. While Eastern/mid NC focused, tips and suggestions may be helpful elsewhere.

To cover costs of printing, five businesses are being sought to provide donations of approximately $500 each, and their logos will appear on each calendar page.  Let us know if your business would like to support this effort: 1.919.269.5414.

FREE Class this Sunday, 1pm at the Clayton Community Center. Halloween and healthy treats. Learn Fall Gardening!

Call 1.919.269.5414 to sign up now.  Taught by Master Gardener Connie Schultz.

The electrician has been hard at work this week connecting the fans, window covers, etc. in the Tucker Greenhouse.  After 8+ months trying to find an electrician who could do it, we feel very lucky to have found this gentleman to get the work done.

We have full fans and automated window open/close motors running.  A few more connections and a thermostat, and we’ll be ready for inspection… and well equipped for the Spring growing season!

THANK YOU to RTI International for providing funding for the greenhouse upgrade as well as supplies for new gardens and seeds/plants for local gardeners!

Couture for a Cause is tonight at Marbles Kids Museum, Raleigh NC.  Please come out and check out the fashions designed for Grow And Share, and support Activate Good for building such a great volunteer base in Wake County and beyond!

PRESS RELEASE - Designer Goes Natural to Support Local Gardening

RALEIGH/ZEBULON, NC - October 15, 2011 - Designer Aubri Rhoads is going
natural with her fashions showcasing local nonprofit Grow And Share and its
campaign to get US residents into the garden.

Aubri is one of the local designers chosen for Activate Good’s Couture for a
Cause fashion show. Couture for a Cause is a fun fashion show that
highlights participating nonprofit partners and raises funds to benefit
Activate Good and support their efforts to inspire and facilitate
volunteerism locally.

For Couture for a Cause, Aubri has been paired with Grow And Share, with a
goal to create ready to wear and couture outfits that embody the mission and
spirit of Grow And Share. With Grow And Share’s focus on gardening
education, garden creation, and community building to fight hunger, Aubri
felt that the designs should not only visually reflect the mission but also
be made - to a reasonable degree - from food.

“I wanted to incorporate as much nature as possible, so I am using 100%
organic cotton for the dress and top,” said Mrs. Rhoads. “I am also using
natural dyes for the color from foods such as spinach and broccoli, coffees,
and tea. I thought this would be a cool way to bring elements of the
organization into the designs.”

Activate Good’s third annual Couture for a Cause fashion show will be held
on Friday, October 21, 2011 at Marbles Kids Museum, located in downtown
Raleigh. The event begins at 8:00 PM with doors opening at 7:30 PM. Tickets
are on sale now at activategood.org for $20 in advance ($25 at the door).
Tickets that include a special pre-event dinner are $50. Visit the Couture
for a Cause page at http://www.activategood.org/couture-for-a-cause.html to
learn more about the designers and nonprofits featured in this year’s show.

Fashions are auctioned at the end of the show. If you’d like to support
Activate Good and procure some seriously natural couture, attend and bid on
these one-of-a-kind, hunger fighting fashions by Aubri Rhoads.

About Activate Good
Activate Good is a nonprofit that activates volunteers to help local causes
in our community by connecting individuals, groups, and companies to
volunteering needs with partnering nonprofits in Wake County and the
surrounding area. To find out more about how you can join us in motivating,
educating, empowering, and engaging others to volunteer, visit us at
activategood.org.

About Grow And Share
Grow And Share is a NC-based organization fighting hunger at the local level
by growing interest in gardening and local foods for sharing. Educational
activities engage residents in gardening as a way of improving their
community food supply. Grow And Share holds gardening classes, conducts
plant giveaways, provides supplies to Sharing Gardeners(TM), and organizes
food giveaways with local organizations to distribute produce to those in
need. Their goal is to help residents provide food for themselves and their
communities. Grow And Share: Fighting Hunger from The Ground Up(TM).

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CONTACT

Kay Whatley
Grow And Share
kay [at] growandshare.org
1.919.269.5414

Brittany Bryan
Activate Good
brittany [at] activategood.org
1.919.930.4843