The Farm Women’s Conference in Brandon attracted various guest speakers and displays and one person at the conference was promoting a healthy fund raising program.

Over the past several years Peak of The Market and the Province of Manitoba have teamed up for a fund raising program that uses vegetables.

“These groups work to deliver the vegetable fund raising program to participating schools and day cares in Manitoba” said Debora Durning-Richards community-liaison partner with the Manitoba Association of Home Economists.

Every fall any school or day care can register to use Manitoba grown vegetables to fund raise for whatever their project is in their facility and they get to keep 50 per cent of the profits. “If you sign up you can sell a small bundle at $12 or a big bundle at $22. The cool thing about this fund raiser is it doesn’t matter where you school or day care is in the province there is no additional cost and the vegetables get delivered directly.”

The program aims to educate youth about local vegetables and Durnin-Richards likes the program because it is a healthy fund raising project.

“We are in our eighth campaign and after the first couple of years we added a neat little component where if you want to sell more you can and give the vegetables to a food bank or soup kitchen but the school or day care gets to keep their 50 per cent of the profits while supporting food banks” said Durnin-Richards.

Over the past seven years the vegetable fund raising program has raised more than $2.5 million for school and day care projects. Food banks have also received through the program more than 500,000 pounds of vegetables.

As for the future organizers hope more schools and day care make use of the fund raising tool. “It took off but has plateaued recently and believe it or not there are many places that haven’t found the fund raiser yet so there are lots of opportunities.”

There is a minimum requirement of 50 bundles of vegetables to participate in the fund raising program.

Durnin-Richards says groups can still participate because the final delivery date is usually the first week of December. Groups interested in the program are encouraged to check out their website at farm2school@mahe.ca.