We really appreciate all the volunteers from East Wake Academy, the Master Gardeners and gardening experts, food servers, vendors, musicians, and friends who came by to help with this event.

As soon as we clear the dust and get all the Silent Auction prizes to the winning bidders, we’ll be issuing information on events upcoming — thanks to the funds raised:

- Saturday in the Greenhouse: held several Saturdays each month starting in January. Saturdays we will educate parents, children, and teachers. Classes will run 2-4 hours and teach things like proper planting, building raised beds, soil choices, watering, plant care, fertilization, pests, harvesting, and preserving.

- Garden Plant Giveaway: held again in late April, we gave away about 14,000 plants in 2010 and will aim for slightly more than that in 2011. We will be checking in with food banks and nutritionists to plan our offerings. (Thank you to Earth Fare, Seed Savers, Southern States, and individual donors for all of the seed we have available for 2011!)

- Roving Garden: traveling garden to visit scouts, schools, and community groups to talk about healthy food, gardening, and helping neighbors.

We will post more information on our Calendar (see link at left) and on this website as dates are finalized for each educational event.

Happy Growing,

The Grow And Share Team

New Silent Auction items include a set of tickets to the Carolina Railhawks soccer, and a round of golf for four at Pinehurst valued at $800!  Come and bid, and all auction proceeds go to Grow And Share gardening education programs.

Recomment the Grow And Share Music Festival 2010, and help raise visibility for this great event!

The Grow And Share Music Festival 2010 is Sunday, September 5th from 10:30am to 5:00pm.  Join us at Rolesville’s Main Street Park and enjoy the music, eat some tasty food, have a snack, learn about gardening, and much more!

Many details about the event may be read in our latest newsletter issue.

Hope to see you there!

PS - If you missed our interview on Rush Radio 106.1FM at 6pm tonight, you can listen to the podcast, provided to us to post by Sybil McGuire.

FIVE GUYS burgers of Knightdale: Thank you for the 100lbs of potatoes that you donated yesterday!

THE BLISS REAL ESTATE GROUP of Cary: Thank you for providing us with fresh-picked tomatoes from Cary’s Pocket Community Garden.

Their help means we can sell the chicken plates for a reasonable fee ($6 preorder, $7 walk-in), and due to the lowered costs can raise more funding for Grow And Share’s educational programs.

We have a (chicken) Plate Sale this upcoming weekend, and then a music festival Labor Day Weekend (Sunday). For BOTH of these fundraisers, we are seeking help from local businesses and organizations. We need the following supplies ASAP (we hope you will donate):

- plates, cups, and utensils (compostable preferred but not required)
- napkins, paper towels, and hand soap
- chickens (150+), hot dogs, and burgers ready to grill
- buns and bread
- 50lbs of potatoes and other locally grown vegetables
- barbecue sauce
- signs printed
- balloons

We thank the local businesses who have provided supplies, including printed posters (Cary International Minute Press, tables (New Bethel Baptist Church), golf cart (Rolesville’s Cart Company), advertising (Raleigh ClearChannel, Carolina MudcatsRadio), and others.

Please email if you can help. We are a 501(c)(3) organization and can provide a receipt for your donation.

Thank you!

The latest issue of The Garden’s Edge newsletter is now available online here.  It has information on the music festival bands, the Silent Auction items collected so far, the vendors and food available, and the sponsors.

We hope this newsletter gives you what you want to know about the festival, and that we will see you there!

Before the festival, we are holding a Plate Sale on Saturday, August 28th.  The $6 per plate (preorder) or $7 per plate (walk-in) goes directly to Grow And Share to fund our gardening/food education programs.  Buy a hot, grilled meal and help Grow And Share!

Come pick up lunch or dinner for yourself and your family. We will have the chicken plates — complete with side dishes including locally grown veggies — available from 11am to 5pm (unless we sell out sooner!) on August 28th. 

Volunteers, if you know of anyone you think would purchase hot chicken dinners, we can send you a flyer that you can use to take orders.

Thank you again for your support!

Grow And Share

This annual fundraiser is coming together well!  We have more than a dozen vendors, four bands, six sponsors, a sports celebrity, dozens of silent auction items, and a troop of volunteers!  You can come to the music festival for free; we hope you’ll help us raise funds by buying food, bidding on auction items, or buying music festival t-shirts!  Funds raised will go toward our educational presentations to schools and organizations, gardening materials for children and adults, and garden plants for Spring gardens.

More information is available by calling us, emailing us, or visiting this website.

Join us for a burger, talk with a master gardener, get your body painted, listen to the music, network with your neighbors, and watch the kids have fun!

Hope to see you and your family on-hand for this great weekend event!