A group of students at Charlottetown Rural came up with an innovative way to support this year's Farmers Helping Farmers Holiday Campaign. Their sales of healthy, tasty greens lead to a donation of $102 towards vegetable grow bags in Kenya.
"The enthusiasm of these students for their business, their product, and their affiliation with FHF was inspiring and delightful," said Farmers Helping Farmers president Colleen Walton.
"One of the students first heard about FHF during his schooling at Stonepark Intermediate and was even more inspired to promote FHF to their customers after reading in detail the work of FHF and seeing the detailed list of items to donate."
Island Microgreens is a Grade 11 Junior Achievement company from Charlottetown Rural, set up by four studentsas part of a project for their entrepreneurship class.
"We are dedicated to selling microgreens, and promoting our brand pillars of a fresh, healthy lifestyle," explained Aidan O'Rourke, one of the owners of Island Microgreens.
Microgreens are young edible greens that grow from 3 to 5 inches in height, and are the sprouts of different vegetables. The company sold alfalfa, radish, red kale, cilantro, and spicy lentil microgreens.
"They can have up to 40% more nutrition in them compared to a full grown vegetable," added O'Rourke.
The company offered two options for sale: the grown microgreens and a grow-it-yourself kit.
One of the company's goals was to raise money for Farmers Helping Farmers, by donating 15% of every product sold. Over 8 weeks, they had 68 total sales and raised more than one hundred dollars.
"We knew going into this project that we wanted to donate some money to a charity, and Farmers Helping Farmers was the first group we thought of," said Aidan O'Rourke.
"Our business model worked well with what FHF was trying to achieve and e wanted to provide fresh vegetables to families on P.E.I. year round and educate people about where their food comes from."
The FHF project supported by this fundraiser are vegetable grow bags. They are large bags used to grow vegetables in rows going up the sides of the metre high bags thereby increasing the land area to grow vegetables for the family and improving the quality of the family’s daily food.
To read more: https://www.farmershelpingfarmers.ca/projects/horticulture-projects/
The students presented their cheque to Farmers Helping Farmers board members Colleen Walton and Barry Cudmore, along with Anne Shileche, a Kenyan MSc. student at UPEI, a Queen Elizabeth Scholar working in conjunction with FHF.
Thank you - asante sana - to Aidan O'Rourke, Jaden Bulger, Kiara LaBobe and Nick Gordon.
Farmers Helping Farmers wishes continued success to Island Microgreens.
