Impact in the community of North End Halifax

Empowering youth to be actively engaged in building environments that impact their communities

Over the past 12 years youth have grown over 50,000 pounds of organic vegetables and fruit for community members dealing with food insecurity, all free of charge.
Each week we provide, free of charge, 200 healthy meals and 306 healthy snacks to community members in the Halifax inner city.
We have a farm exchange program in the Annapolis Valley. Hope Blooms worked to bring over 500 pounds of organic produce that our youth donated to the 110 Syrian refugees that now live in their community.
The youth gave 15 garden plots to Syrian families in 2016 so they could grow food for their families.
Hope Blooms held more than 100 food literacy /cooking skills training workshops, 12 community suppers, and more than 500 free soup-meals deliveries to seniors in the community in 2020.

In 2016, Dalhousie School of Health Promotion conducted research to measure impact through the lens of the youth parent (s)/ guardians:

100% of respondents said they believe having a plot in Hope Blooms garden has increased their ability to provide healthy food for their families.
99% felt a greater sense of belonging in their community since participating in the Hope Blooms garden and programs.
92% indicated that their level of community involvement has improved since joining the garden.
We now have 375 youth (in-person and virtual), more than 100 families, and seniors from diverse ethnicities across the province (including 20 newcomer families from Syria) that volunteer, and grow food, relationships, and community.
We share our commercial kitchen, free of charge, with a group of Syrian newcomers, who have started selling their baked goods weekly at the Farmers Seaport Market. Our youth leaders have mentored them in social entrepreneurship and customer engagement skills.

In June 2016, our first Hope Blooms member, Mamadou Wade, graduated from high school. He received an $8,000 Hope Blooms scholarship, through sales of our dressings, and won $70,000 TD Community Leadership Scholarship award. Mamadou studies commerce at the University of Toronto and is the 1st in his family to go to post-secondary.
4 youth graduated from high school in 2018 and all are on track for post-secondary education. Like Mamadou, all will be the first in their families to undertake post-secondary.
Bocar Wade was shortlisted this year for the Loran Scholarship of $100,000. He has been involved in Hope Blooms since age 10 and has said, “Beauty and brilliance do not know a postal code.”
In 2016, 4 of our youth received their Masters Organic Gardeners Certification – the youngest in Canada to receive this University credit. Alvero, one of the recipients , with Hope Blooms for the past 7 years, stated, “I have learned so much about life from agriculture and from ecosystems where everything from a micro-organism to a tomato plant has equal value and reverence.”
In 2020, 9 youths received the Hope Blooms scholarship $36.000 were given, ALL this money is raised with your help from the profits of our fresh herb salad dressings.