Promoting Community Garden Projects

Community garden projects are activities that strengthen relationships amongst the members of a community. Through stewardship and beautification, community garden projects promote awareness, pride and ownership of a community’s place. Community garden projects are activities that assign members of a community to tend a garden plot within the community. A member of the community will be assigned a specific task for the community garden for a specific period of time. The growth of the garden will depend on how much time and effort the community invests in it. Below are tips on how to generate awareness, involvement and support for a community garden.

Hold events-Promote a community garden by opening it to the public as a venue for public and private events. Community gardens make very functional as well as pleasant spaces for community events such as birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, church meetings, small performances, even intimate weddings.  The community garden can also be used as a venue to hold gardening classes such as organic gardening, xeriscapes design, and ornamental plant growing.

Use publicity-Request a famous celebrity or personality, particularly if he or she comes from the community to promote a community garden project. Write to newspapers and magazines in order to inform them of the project. Enter community based, nationwide and local competitions. Organize competitions and field trips to the garden for local students.

Use print promotional materials-A simple but effective promotional technique is the use of printed materials. Print a variety of on-site and handy, giveaway materials for the community garden. These include large on-site signage like canvas prints and mountable posters. Handy giveaways include flyers, bookmarks, stickers, brochures, postcards, greeting cards, catalogs and even newsletters. Distribute them within and outside the community for wider exposure and promotion. Printed materials are easy and convenient to order with the use of both local and online printing services. A list of online printers that offer services at reasonable prices have pages in online directories. Uprinting for example, is an online printing company that not only offers discounted rates on wholesale postcard and poster printing. It also maintains blogs and forum pages on printing tips and blog sponsorship promos for those in need of printing services such as youthedesigner.com