Medina Housing Association is one of the first organisations in the South East to receive a grant from the £50 million Local Food Programme which will be funding food related community projects right across the country. Their project is also being delivered in partnership with the local organisation “Growing Ideas”.

The community food growing project will offer training, information, produce a newsletter and arrange drop in sessions for the residents in Pan and the Oakfield area of Ryde. Growing Spaces hopes to enable communities to manage land sustainably for growing food locally. With this grant the project will target disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Raised beds, filled with compost, soil, plants and seed will be installed into gardens and communal areas to encourage residents to start growing their own food. The participants cover a wide age-range, and will include single parents, people with health problems, disabilities, those with low income, who are unemployed or on incapacity benefit.

Medina Housing Community Enterprise Manager, Maria Wilkinson said:

“We are a community-focused association, aiming to deliver spaces where communities can learn to grow their own food locally. We are committed to working closely with our tenants and the local residents.”

Tammy Hines, a participant from the project said:

“This is the first time we’ve grown vegetables, and we’re very proud of what we’ve achieved”

Mark Wheddon, Local Food Programme Manager said:

“It is projects like this that have a wide and lasting impact on the community and we are happy to support them. The ‘Growing Spaces’’ project marks just the beginning in terms of Local Food grants. With a record £50 million to distribute to various groups we will begin to see a real change in the accessibility of local food.”

Local Food has been developed by a consortium of 15 national environmental organisations, and is managed on their behalf by the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT). Supported by the Big Lottery Fund's Changing Spaces programme, Local Food will distribute grants to a variety of food related projects to make locally grown food more accessible