'Love Fed' Launches Campaign to Create Home Gardens throughout New Haven

Willimantic, CT (03/06/2020) — "Love Fed Initiative" is excited to announce a new community sustainability project in New Haven that aims to provide people with a way to grow their own food at home. Love Fed is seeking broad support from the community to help make the project a reality. Love Fed needs to raise $25,000 by its fundraising deadline of May 1, which will be matched, dollar for dollar, by the Sustainable CT Community Match Fund, raising a total of $50,000 for the project.

Home farms remove the need to travel to community gardens which sometimes aren't in the neighborhood, aren't maintained or at capacity. Love Fed intends to complete a minimum of 100 home farm garden beds during the spring and summer of 2020 and educate home farmers and community members about growing food in urban environments.

"We're empowering our community to take their health into their own hands, one healthy household at a time," said Love Fed.

Sustainable CT is an initiative of the Institute for Sustainable Energy (ISE) at Eastern Connecticut State University meant to assist communities in becoming more resilient and sustainable. The Community Match Fund CT provides a dollar-for-dollar match to donations raised from the community, doubling local investment in projects.

To learn more about the project and donate, visit https://ioby.org/project/home-farms-campaign.

About Sustainable CT and the Community Match Fund

Sustainable CT is funded by the Hampshire Foundation, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and Connecticut Green Bank. The Sustainable CT Community Match Fund is an innovative funding resource that provides a dollar-for-dollar match to all donations raised from the community, doubling local investment. The program is helping to bring projects across the state to life by providing fast, accessible funding as well as fundraising coaching and support to residents and organizations with great ideas to make their communities more sustainable.

Anyone in a Sustainable CT-registered municipality (more than 50 percent of the state) is eligible to receive this funding, meaning that schools, nonprofits, community groups and individual residents can all propose projects and access the matching funds. To start a Community Match Fund project, visit www.ioby.org/sustainablect or contact Sustainable CT's Abe Hilding-Salorio at hildingsalorioa@easternct.edu or 860-465-0256.

"Through the Community Match Fund, we aim to put residents at the forefront of creating positive, impactful change," said Hilding-Salorio, Community Outreach Manager for Sustainable CT. "Match Fund projects are community led and community funded, demonstrating the power of people working together to make change in their communities."

Sustainable CT, an initiative by the Institute for Sustainable Energy at Eastern Connecticut State University, provides a roadmap of sustainability best practices for towns, technical assistance, funding and recognition through certification. Forty-seven towns and cities across Connecticut have earned the prestigious Sustainable CT certification, demonstrating accomplishments in nine impact categories including inclusive and equitable communities, cleaner transportation, vibrant arts and culture, natural resource stewardship and affordable housing. Find more information at www.sustainablect.org.