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Your school is seeking an original fundraising idea? Choose to sell local and organic vegetables!

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Equiterre offers schools a promising project for communities, health and the environment: the sale of organic vegetable baskets produced by our family farmers!

Each basket is sold for 30$ and allows to collect 6$. Baskets are delivered to your school on the date you establish with the farmer.

This is an interesting alternative to traditional sales of oranges or chocolate. The sale of organic baskets is a virtuous circle where everyone is a winner! “We are setting up a turnkey project for educational institutions. We want this approach to be accessible to all schools in the province”, explains Équiterre project manager Murielle Vrins, working with institutions on their food supply.

ADVANTAGES

  1. Raise funds for your school ($6 from each basket sold)
  2. Promote the benefits of healthy, local and sustainable food to the children in your school
  3. Vegetables that are free of synthetic pesticides and GMOs
  4. Reduced packaging and food miles
  5. Support for the local economy and our farmers

To participate, simply register your school to the School Takes Roots fundraising campaign, identify a contact person to coordinate the fundraising campaign in your school and promote it with the material provided. All the details are available here: www.equiterre.org/schoolstakeroot/registration

Do not hesitate to suggest this campaign to the school management or school board. Download our information sheet.

Example of a basket: beets, carrots, garlic, leeks, potatoes, onions, cabbage, celeriac and zucchinis.

A FIRST IN QUEBEC IN FALL 2016

At the initiative of the parents and presented to the school board, two establishments in the Montreal region carried out such campaigns in the fall 2016 (read the full article on this first in Quebec). The profits allowed them to carry out a campaign of Christmas baskets and to finance the rehabilitation of a schoolyard (See the full photo album on Équiterre's Facebook page.)

AN INOVATIVE PROJECT THAT IS SPREADING IN CANADA

While this project is the first of its kind in Quebec, it is inspired by similar initiatives that have emerged in other provinces. This innovative idea first took root in Manitoba, where a fundraising campaign offering root vegetables is organized each fall under the management and coordination of an association of local farmers known as Peak of the Market. In 2015, over 350,000 kg of Manitoba-grown vegetables were sold and delivered to 358 schools and day care centres across the province. Manitoba is the first province in Canada to have established such a program province-wide, but similar projects have already been launched in Ontario and British Columbia, with others soon to follow in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

INFORMATIONS

Geneviève Chatelain | 514-522-2000, poste 248 | gchatelain@equiterre.org