In 2014, the Farm Centre Association created the Legacy Garden in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. You can see a video of the Garden when it was first established at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh1DLqqi1Tw .

Each year we try to expand upon the contribution we provide to our community. As a result, The Legacy Garden has grown to become one of the largest urban farms in Canada with over 160 Community Garden plots, a Memorial Garden, Family Pastimes Gardens, an Urban beehive Project ( https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-urban-beehive-project-1.4871581 ), a Food Forest and a Goodwill Garden.

We do sell some of our products to help cover costs. However, in the Goodwill Garden, we produce, on average, over 20,000 pounds of food which are donated to various charities to help alleviate food insecurity among those who represent the most vulnerable sectors of our community.

With this present fund-raising campaign, we plan to purchase a commercial scale freeze dryer to preserve food that may otherwise go to waste. We also intend to build a four-season greenhouse that will also include much-needed storage capacity for equipment. Achieving these goals means that we will be able to provide safe, healthy, and well-preserved foods to people so they can maintain an emergency supply all year long.

We also plan to create a tree nursery. Planting trees has been identified as one of the most effective actions people can take to sequester carbon to reverse global warming, restore biodiversity, and regenerate our soils. With a focus on fruit and nut trees, we will also be contributing to the long-term food security of all Islanders. The nursery will also contribute to the provincial government’s goal of planting 750,000 trees.

Pre-COVID, we were blessed with the enormous community support of over 1000 volunteers per year. However, 2020 was an exceptional year. We had to cut back on our staffing, cancel our volunteer support, transition our marketing to online, and cope with an unprecedented drought that severely limited our production.

We are asking for your help so that we can continue to help those who need it the most. Before the pandemic, approximately 14 percent of Islanders were considered to be food insecure. That represents approximately 22,000 Islanders; over twenty-five percent of whom are children. This year, due to COVID-19 and the resulting economic slowdown, we are witnessing an unprecedented rise in the number of people relying upon the food banks. When people are hungry their health declines, social order breaks down and crime often increases. Your tax-deductible contribution to the PEI Farm Centre will result in fewer people going hungry.