A heartfelt appeal to help Growing with Grace contain and cover its energy costs this winter and beyond.

I am writing to you as Chair to seek your support in helping Growing with Grace to become more financially resilient this winter and set us on a more self-sufficient course for energy.

Our appeal to customers, shareholders and supporters…

Escalating costs over the past couple of years have left us with a forecast budget shortfall in 2024 that could threaten our survival as a business.  This appeal seeks to secure up to £10,000 in donations before 31st January 2024 to help our social business contain and cover its energy costs (which have quadrupled since 2019), and to build our capacity to explore and generate our own renewable energy at our Clapham site. Below I’ve set out the background to our appeal and how you and other supporters could help us.

What we do…

• Growing with Grace is committed to growing and promoting food which is produced in a sustainable and ecologically sound way, to develop people’s food growing skills and to increase community access to local wholesome food in line with fair trade, vegan, organic and Quaker principles.  We are recipients of national awards from the Soil Association, and recently were runners-up for Producer of the Year in the BBC Food Farming awards.
• As a community co-operative we have been growing, selling, and improving access to local organic produce for communities across North Lancashire, South Cumbria, and Yorkshire from our base in Clapham for 23 years.
• We have grown our social value and have engaged and supported hundreds of local and international volunteers in planting, nurturing, and harvesting organic herbs, vegetables, and fruit annually.
• Based in a rurally sparse area we provide employment for over a dozen local people.

Our current position…

The last couple of years have been particularly challenging in terms of increased fuel, energy, and employment costs, on top of the destabilising effect of the COVID pandemic.

Our Management Committee has worked collaboratively with employees and volunteers to introduce new ways of working to reduce costs whilst maintaining our high-quality produce and service.

However, like every food business, we had to reluctantly put our prices up earlier this year to take these cost increases into account.  Setting the price increase was challenging because we recognised customers too were experiencing increased cost of living pressures, and so we made only modest price adjustments.

We have strived to reduce our business energy costs relating to heating and cooling – both of which are essential in a people – based fresh produce business.

We also have an ambition to generate our own renewable energy and change our delivery vehicles from diesel to electric. We have recently secured a central government grant for an energy audit of our community farm, including recommendations for energy conservation and generation. Securing external grant and expertise to deliver these aspirations, however, has taken longer than anticipated and we are issuing this appeal for support to cover our energy costs until these are available.

Looking to the future and how you can help…

Weare confident that in 2024 we can secure further regional and national grants for renewable energy installation and the purchase of an initial electric vehicle.  We anticipate this will help us to future-proof Growing with Grace and build a more resilient and sustainable business which will thrive over the next 23 years, improving local food security for the community and access to wholesome organic food.

Please consider donating, what you can to our appeal in the knowledge that you are helping Growing with Grace become more resilient and climate-friendly in 2024, and to be generating our own renewable energy in 2025.

To donate please click this link which will take you to our Crowdfunding Page.  If you have any concerns about donating using this mechanism, then please contact one of my colleagues at Growing with Grace at the number below. Thank you.

Whilst we have an ambitious target to raise £10,000 before 31st January 2024, we have decided that any funds raised above this amount will be ring-fenced for future investment in renewable energy development on our Community Farm site at Clapham.

Kind Regards

Neil Marshall

Chair of Growing with Grace