Growing a community: The Farm at RRU celebrates successful harvest
Today Royal Roads University celebrated another successful year at The Farm at RRU, hosting a fall harvest event for donors, staff, students, volunteers and community members.
The gathering was an opportunity to share in The Farm’s harvest with activity stations, tours of the expanding food gardens and speeches from Susan Gee, vice-president of communications and advancement at RRU, and representatives from partner organizations.
Thanks to support from volunteers and donors, The Farm doubled crop production from the previous year, and provided more than 3,000 pounds of fresh produce to community partners like Our Place Society, Iyé Creative, the Victoria Community Fridge and the RRU community fridge.
“It’s such a joy to see this space on campus grow into a community gathering place,” says Philip Steenkamp, RRU’s president and vice-chancellor. “Thanks to the work of many hands, we’ve expanded our harvest and were able to support local food production that directly benefits organizations right here in the Greater Victoria Area, as well as stock our own RRU community fridge for students who may face food insecurity.”
Providing for the community — helping to tackle hunger — is important and necessary given what we’re facing on a local and global scale, says Steenkamp. “Our faculty, staff, students and garden volunteers truly care about our community, and this is an incredible way of showing it.”
The fall harvest of The Farm is possible thanks in part to the university’s annual Vision in Bloom fundraising appeal, which brought in more than $250,000 this year, to support ongoing work to restore, reimagine and sustain the university’s century-old gardens and ancient landscapes. This Spring, TD Bank Group announced a generous donation of $196,000 donation in support of this work.
“We’re grateful by the support for The Farm,” says Solara Goldwynn, RRU food systems manager. “Donors, volunteers and partners have made this idea a reality and I look forward to seeing its continued success.”
The next phase of The Farm at RRU will feature the creation of an Indigenous Medicine Garden, expanding food growing space to integrate a Market Garden and a Polyculture Orchard all located close to the ever-expanding Giving Garden.
Learn more: