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How you can help your child's school to grow

Funding

Schools already in the programme have shown that if you engage the right people then you can get a good deal of what you need for free one way or another. School governors can be a useful resource as they have connections that might help, for example the companies they work for might be prepared to sponsor the garden and they might help encourage the school governing body to support it using school funds.

Grants

There may be some grants available out there but they are likely to be oversubscribed and the application process and funding cycle may not fit with your own time-frame. We don't offer grants ourselves, or encourage schools to apply for them as Gardens for Life is really about the inspiration that schools around the world have shown when facing the challenges of growing a garden and it makes it much harder for participating schools to be on an equal footing if some have grants while others in the developing world have to make do.

Sponsorship

If you think you can't get the project going without some external funding or support there area few alternatives to grants. Local supermarkets are a good place to look for sponsorship -- I would suggest approaching the store manager in the first instance. A local gardening centre might be able to provide you with some of the raw materials in return for some publicity. Before you approach anyone I would work out exactly what you need in terms of equipment and how much it will cost so it's clear what the money would be spent on.

In-kind support

Other parents and grandparents are another potential asset for the same reason, and they can also help provide in-kind support, e.g. breaking ground (generally a task that most children find difficult), whether by hand or by providing access to equipment, and they often have (or know people who have) the skills you need to get the garden going. You could also approach local allotment associations who might be prepared to give you some seeds or share their expertise. You do need to be careful about who actually gets involved with the hands-on gardening with the children (the school will know about this), and generally a criminal records bureau check would need to be run before anyone not connected with the school is allowed to work with children;- this is standard procedure for anyone working with children these days.