Capital Growth set to take root in secondary schools, colleges and universities

Fifteen London lends support for education competition and offers training prize at its flagship restaurant
Grants up to £1,000 available for new community food growing projects

The Mayor, Boris Johnson today announced the Capital Growth schools competition has branched out to include London's secondary schools, colleges and universities.

Building of the success of last year's inaugural competition aimed at primary schools, this year entries will be welcomed from even more educational organisations with the capital's top food growers in line to win a crop of top prizes.

The competition is being backed by Fifteen London as a great way to help London's young people and students learn about food growing and to eat and cook with fresh, seasonal produce. The restaurant, founded by Jamie Oliver, has offered two people in both the secondary schools category and the combined category for colleges and universities the chance to spend a day at Fifteen London. Lucky winners will don chef’s whites to shadow the restaurant's top chefs for the day, watching service and tasting some of the dishes. They will also get the opportunity to get involved and help out in the kitchens. Fifteen is committed to training its staff and apprentices to instil a passion for great food and a respect for the environment.

Other prizes in all categories include raised beds, tools, fruit trees, seeds, gift cards. The primary and nursery school winners will get the chance to come to City Hall's vegetable patch to meet and show off their skills to the Mayor, Boris Johnson.

At the same time, Capital Growth has announced its latest round of small grants to help people set up a community food plot amounting to £50,000 in total. This is open to potential entries to the education competition as well as any group keen to get growing.

Boris Johnson, said: ‘I want London to teem with beautiful green spaces to improve the quality of life in our city, especially as we head for 2012 when the world's eyes will be on us. This Capital Growth competition is a brilliant way to help people catch the food growing bug, so I urge people to unleash their creative juices and join in.'

Last year's primary school entries helped create 50 brand new Capital Growth plots and their creativity included growing food in the head-teacher’s shoes, creating a bug hotel and using own-grown rhubarb for school lunches. Other pupils in London are using food growing to cultivate business and entrepreneurial skills by selling crops to farmers markets. Students at London's universities can also help cut their living costs by producing a cheap supply of food.

Raj Kotbcha, Headteacher of South Haringey Infant school, winners of last year's competition and where pupils have created a 'bug hotel' for to encourage insects, said: 'This project has demonstrated how much can be achieved in a garden and provides an engaging and healthy environment for pupils who may not have access to the outdoors at home. They also get to taste the delicious produce with enough potatoes being harvested to feed all of the 180 pupils.’

Rosie Boycott, Chair of the Mayor’s Food board, added: ‘Capital Growth is flourishing and we know there is an appetite out there from secondary schools, colleges and universities to get involved. Food growing brings a whole heap of benefits for children, younger people and students so I cannot wait to see the wealth of variety in our competition entries.’

To help educational institutions and other organisations get growing, Capital Growth will also be launching a training programme across four sites, which will include classes for teachers.

Capital Growth is a partnership initiative between London Food Link, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, and the Big Lottery's Local Food Fund. It is championed by the Chair of the London Food Board Rosie Boycott and aims to create 2012 new community food growing spaces across London by the end of 2012. Capital Growth offers practical help, grants training and support to groups wanting to establish community food growing projects as well as well as advice to landowners.  There are already 726 plots in a wide range of places including plots at schools, housing estates, homeless hostels, universities and even in skips.

Sarah Williams of London Food Link, who manages the project said: 'The team here at Capital Growth recognises the importance of small pots of funding to help get projects started. In addition to other support that we provide, such as training and network events, we have seen what a difference a few hundred pounds can make in transforming an unused space in to an urban food growing oasis.'

Boosting the amount of locally grown food in London has a range of health and environmental benefits, such as helping communities get together to tackle local problems of littering and anti-social behaviour and improving access to nutritious, seasonal and low cost food. It also reduces food miles and cuts carbon emissions. There is rising interest in self-grown food and with inner London boroughs often having waiting lists for allotments that can be decades long, Capital Growth offers a practical alternative.

For more information on the competition or training opportunities please call Capital Growth, on: 020 7837 1228 or visit: www.capitalgrowth.org

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The Capital Growth education competition entitled Capital Growth ABSeeds is open to nurseries, primary schools, secondary schools colleges and universities in London that plan to have or have a food growing project on their grounds. There are four categories: Best Nursery Edible Garden, Best Primary School Edible Garden, Best Secondary School Edible Garden and Best University and College Edible Garden. Prizes will be given to the winner and two runners up per category. To enter the competition visit our website www.capitalgrowth.org/abseed and fill out an online form. If you have any problems with this process please contact Paola Guzman at paola@sustainweb.org or at 020 7837 1228. The deadline to register for the competition is 3 June 2011.
In London, there are around 2300 primary schools, 1500 day nurseries, 850 secondaries, 50 colleges, 32 universities.
Grants round: The cash can be used to buy equipment like tools, seeds and raised beds by groups wanting to grow healthy, local food.  Over 120 groups including 30 schools have just received a grant from Capital Growth to get them growing last funding round. All education institutions and other groups have who have identified some land can apply online (www.capitalgrowth.org/apply) until 14th February 2011 for up to £1,000, to help to turn underused land into a vegetable patch.
South Haringey Infant School won the Capital Growth Climate cool category in 2010’s school competition. The school successfully extended their teaching space last year through incorporating lessons into a fantastic veggie garden. It has become a key feature of the school, hosting lessons such as art, poetry, literacy and maths as well as involving the wider school community and successfully using the kitchen waste for compost and harvesting rain to water the plants.
Support for Capital Growth is gathering pace and there are now 15 London boroughs committed to identifying suitable plots, recently joined by Hackney, Barking and Dagenham and Enfield.  Housing associations are also signing up to the scheme including Peabody and Tower Hamlets Homes who manage more than 100,000 homes, many of them in the London area.