KGI undertakes a global garden journey

... so much more than just a local farmers or farm and garden market, single community garden, a personal kitchen garden outside the back door. Kitchen Gardeners International Director Roger Doiron write to invite us along ...

Dear Kitchen Gardener,

KGI is embarking on a journey and I'm asking you to take one step to help us get there.  Today, we're launching our most ambitious campaign in support of the global kitchen garden cause since our successful White House Garden Campaign two years ago. 

Please join and support our Fork it Over campaign to raise one million dollars for food gardens around the world. That's a lot of money for any organization, especially a small one like KGI whose annual budget is under $100,000. Setting such a big financial goal sends three important messages: 

1. that we face big social and environmental challenges 
2. that food gardens can play an important role in helping meet them and 
3. that, to realize its promise, the food garden movement requires new investments of human and financial resources.

What is this all about?

The Fork It Over Campaign seeks to strengthen the global homegrown movement by 

1. raising awareness about food gardens and their many social and environmental benefits and 
2. raising funds that will allow us to help more people around the world to grow their own healthy food. 

It's a project of the Maine-based 501c3 nonprofit Kitchen Gardeners International and Part 2 in a series of major food garden promotion campaigns we're hoping to do. Part 1 was our successful campaign to inspire the First Family to plant a kitchen garden at the White House.

In this campaign, we're respectfully asking gardeners and public figures from the US, Canada and overseas to "fork over" some of their bucks and online buzz to the food garden cause.  If we're trying to enlist these stars and raise these funds, it's because we feel the healthy garden cause needs a stronger voice in society.  Last year, for example, the fast food industry spent over 4 billion dollars on marketing in the US alone. To some, raising a million dollars for food gardens may sound like a drop in the watering can in comparison. To us, it sounds like a very good start.

Read on: What will KGI do with the funds raised from this campaign?

It's a big goal with big risks, but the avantage of being part of a community like KGI is that the risks and benefits of our undertakings are shared.  Plus, if we don't make a million dollar statement on behalf of food gardens, who will?

Thanks for donating and for sharing our Fork it Over campaign as broadly as you can with your online contacts ... back next week with the KGI April newsletter.

Roger Doiron, Founding Director, Kitchen Gardeners International

3 Powderhorn Drive, Scarborough, ME 04074, United States