At Cultivating Community, we put people first. We are a social enterprise with a simple and powerful purpose: to support communities to overcome economic, social and nutrition barriers through growing food, building connection and creating meaningful pathways to employment. We do this through providing access to productive gardens and placemaking, culinary and horticultural careers and food and horticulture education that offers skills training and development and creates employment opportunities. Our work has and always will have a community first approach.
We’ve been running for over 25 years, operating from the heart of Melbourne, based within the communities we serve. When Cultivating Community began, we were primarily an organisation dedicated to creating community gardens that gave social housing residents an opportunity to grow their own food and encouraged social connection, even when they don’t all speak the same language, they have a shared love of gardening, growing food and cooking. We’ve grown a lot since then but our passion for horticulture and food has remained and our dedication to helping CALD, migrant and disabled communities has never wavered.
We now maintain 24 public housing community gardens through support from local residents and since 1998 we’ve activated and managed 2 communal gardens at new social housing developments and piloted the Green Gathering model at both sites to support social connection, garden use and peer-led activities. Our team has increased to meet our growing workload, reaching over 6,000 people across our garden spaces and through school partnerships, cooking programs and employment support. We’ve also partnered with schools to deliver co-design education programs focused on food systems, sustainability and vocational learning outcomes. We’re proud of the work we’ve done and the legacy we’ve created, but there’s always more to do. To reflect the breadth and depth of the organisation we’ve grown to be, we’ve updated our brand, logo and our strategy to give us new direction and focus with which to navigate the years ahead.
What doesn’t change is our values and our purpose. We remain positive as an organisation, working creatively to create places and opportunities where people can grow together, learn new skills, share stories and create a sense of belonging. We bring this to life through our:
- Productive Gardens and Placemaking: Spread across Melbourne, our gardens are shared spaces designed together with people who live in social and affordable housing. They’re more than just places to grow food, they’re a place of pride that offer the opportunity to connect, come together, share knowledge in a clean, safe and beautiful environment.
- Employment Pathways: Our pathways to employment initiatives are designed to help members gain confidence and learn key skills in the food industry and horticulture to eventually lead to a career in the culinary or horticulture space. It’s about more than just jobs; it’s about opportunity, support and believing in yourself.
- Food & Horticultural Education: Led by our incredible chefs and teachers, these fun, hands-on programs are all about reconnecting with food – where it comes from, how to cook it and how it brings us together. These sessions help people of all ages learn about healthy eating and caring for the environment.
- Horticulture and Maintenance Services: Our expert team creates thoughtful, sustainable garden spaces for schools, community centres, and organisations. Every project is unique, just like the communities we work with.
We stand today as a resilient, financially thriving organisation and we’re looking forward to a new future, building programs side by side with our communities. This new strategic direction and take us into a new exciting phase with an energetic and capable team both internally and externally. Watch this space!
