SSE Airtricity, Ireland’s largest green energy provider, was proud to help fund GIY’s new €1.45 million National Food Education Centre, GROW HQ, which officially opened its doors on Thursday (6 October) in Waterford City.
GROW HQ is the new home of the GIY (Grow It Yourself) movement, started in Waterford in 2008. The movement aims to bring people together in homes, workplaces, schools, communities and online to inspire and support each other to grow food. The centre includes food gardens and will serve as an urban ‘grow school’, cookery school, café and farm shop.
SSE Airtricity was one of a number of private sector businesses to contribute funding to the project and help bring the centre to life. The company’s donation was part of the annual Community Fund for projects near to its Great Island Power Station, which generates enough energy to power the equivalent of half a million Irish homes.
Within the next 5 years at GROW HQ, GIY are hoping to attract 250,000 visitors and reskill 17,000 people to grow and cook their own food. The centre’s café will serve home-grown, seasonal, local, organic food. GIY are aiming for the café to become self-sufficient in the supply of fruit and vegetables from the GROW HQ gardens and the market garden at Carriganore. Over the next 12 months, GIY will be offering a variety of learning courses each month for adults and children, covering all aspects of growing and cooking food, nutrition and sustainable living.
Padraig Dunleavy, Station Manager at SSE’s Great Island Power Station, said:
“At our power station, we place a strong emphasis on the health and wellbeing of our employees, so we’re delighted to be backing GIY’s GROW HQ. Sustainability is one of SSE Airtricity’s core values, impacting on our day-to-day decisions and actions as a business. We aim to do the right thing at all times and make a positive difference to people’s lives and to wider society.
“The new centre will help to educate thousands of people about sustainable living and self-sufficiency through teaching them how to grow and cook their own quality food. We’re proud to have played a part in the fundraising for the project and we look forward to seeing all the exciting initiatives GIY have planned for the centre in the years ahead.”
Michael Kelly, founder and CEO of GIY, commented:
“We are really pleased to have SSE Airtricity as one of our GROW Circle Members - all the more so given they were the final company to join this particular investment programme, effectively helping us complete our fundraising for GROW HQ.
“The support of such a large company on the back of its own commitment to employee wellbeing and corporate social responsibility illustrates the growing awareness multinationals have of their responsibility to affect positive change around key health and environmental issues. We look forward to working with SSE Airtricity over the coming years.”
GROW HQ is open daily from 8am to 5pm. More details can be found at www.growhq.org, or by following @giyireland and @Grow_HQ on Twitter.