TCV is helping Leicester City become healthier and happier through encouraging people to come together and grow food.
The Leicester City Food Plan is a long-term programme to make Leicester a healthy city with a sustainable food system.
Our role within this is to encourage communities to grow their own food. Funded by Leicester City Council, TCV delivers the Let’s Get Growing project, providing free events, support and food growing advice to community groups and settings like libraries, leisure centres, places of worship and community centres.
We:
- Help community groups become confident in growing food
- Offer free training and resources to communities through our programme of courses and workshops
- Run seed swaps and a plant swap
- Assist groups to apply for grants and funding to develop their projects
There are so many wins for everyone from growing your own food. Growing together, we can connect with each other; be more physically active; boost our mood; eat better for less; and become healthier.
For more information and dates of upcoming events, please contact Kay Thompson or join our Leicester Food Growing Facebook Group.
How we can help your community group
Our experienced staff can give your group tonnes of advice and support! We can run courses (a limited number are available every year) to help you learn to grow your own food, right from the basics – or we also do more advanced courses if you are already experienced. We can help with garden design, teach about seasonal growing, and give advice that fits your site and group.
We can also help you set up your group on a formal footing, for example looking at how to constitute your group, and where and how to look for funding.
Groups in Leicester may also be eligible for funding support through the City Council’s Get Growing Grant or The Chestnut Fund grant, which is administered by TCV.