Living Green Barrie is sprouting once again, thanks to a much-needed grant courtesy of the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF).
The local charitable organization, which strives to inspire people to make responsible environmental choices, hosted HarvestShare on Saturday, Sept. 24 — a celebration of locally grown fruit and produce.
Over recent weeks, volunteers picked fruit from their trees and veggies from their gardens which was redistributed to the Barrie Native Friendship Centre’s Community, and were joined by a representative from Barrie-Innisfil MPP Andrea Khanjin’s office to formally congratulate them on the work that’s been happening as a result of receiving a $53,800 Resilient Communities Fund from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) earlier this year.
The funding has been helping the organization to rebuild after the pandemic almost drove it to its breaking point.
“Registered charities like Living Green Barrie are the glue that hold our communities together and inspire everyone to make responsible environmental choices,” said Khanjin in a press release.
“Living Green Barrie has been able to successfully accomplish many events over the past months, and the Ontario Government’s Trillium Foundation Resilient Communities Fund of $53,800 was able to help them to reach their goals.”
Living Green Barrie has been delivering environmental projects and events in Barrie for over 30 years on a shoe-string budget, and without stable core funding, the organization has held on through grants, fundraising and the determination of its dedicated group of volunteers.
The grant has helped the organization recover and rebuild by developing new sustainable and resilient financial and fundraising strategic plans and accessing a new donor management system. It has also allowed Living Green Barrie to explore more partnerships and build better programs.
“The pandemic has really illuminated Living Green's vulnerability as an organization,” said executive director Andee Pelan. “We have been filling a vital need in Barrie but there is so much more that needs to be done, if only we had the resources. We know that the more successful we are, the more our community benefits.”
With the official arrival of fall, Living Green is now turning its attention to tree planting events throughout October as part of their 10,000 Trees for Barrie campaign — the goal of which is to plant 10,000 trees within the city in the span of five years.
To date, more than 3,000 trees have already been planted. For more information about upcoming events or to support LG, please visit www.LivingGreenBarrie.com.
