Fresh Roots has been growing food, youth, and community on schoolyard farms for over 10 years—but in order to keep nourishing our community, we need your help.

This season, we’re making critical upgrades to our farms, including:
– Refurbishing a shipping container into cold storage to keep our harvests fresh longer
– Installing a new irrigation system to conserve water and grow more food efficiently
– Replacing aging equipment to support our farmers and youth programs

Will you join us with a donation to help bring these projects to life? You can click below to make a donation now.

These upgrades will seriously boost our capacity. This new irriguation system means, less weed pressure, less water waste, fewer interruptions. Having reliable infrastructure means our team can do more with less stress, especially during peak season.

The cooler also means we can get food out to food banks and donations programs faster, fresher, and with less back-and-forth. Market returns will go straight into the cooler, and from there, straight into the hands of folks who need them—whether it’s our CSA subscribers, the Renfrew-Collingwood Neighbourhood House, or CityReach.

We’ll have more capacity to mentor youth. For youth programs like SOYL and Camp Fresh Roots, it’s going to be a game-changer. On top of that, before, irrigation systems would water the areas where programming happened—so kids would arrive to soggy, muddy ground. Now, we can make programming more comfortable and enjoyable.

We grow thousands of pounds of food on school grounds every year. We feed students and staff, offer food literacy, run schoolyard markets, and donate a lot to food security partners. But all of that work depends on infrastructure that lets us keep up. These two projects are giving us the tools we need to keep growing—literally and figuratively.

Camille, Director of Farming & Operations

Why This Matters
These improvements will allow us to grow and distribute more food, reduce waste, and provide hands-on learning experiences for youth. With better infrastructure, our farmers will have more time to share their knowledge with youth, inspiring the next generation of food leaders.

Learn more about these exciting projects on our blog!