Creative Communities - BC Library Conference 2015

Innovation Rooted in History Connecting communities to local food and nature experience is increasingly recognized as essential to individual and community health and well-being. Yet access to the tools and knowledge to grow plants in the city is unequally distributed. As a way to invite new and experienced gardeners alike to share resources on common ground, LifeCycles Project Society presented the idea of developing a community led seed library in partnership with the Greater Victoria Public Library. With an aim to build healthy communities through free seed and free education, LifeCycles and GVPL are now working with partners across Canada to develop a sustainable and transferable seed library program model, which we hope to share with interested public libraries and community groups throughout BC.  In February 2014, the Victoria Seed Library was launched, providing free membership to people once they have attended an introductory workshop. Seeds are made available through Seed Library Saturdays 2-3 times per month at various library branches and people are invited to participate in regular gardening and seed saving workshops freely available at the library and in community gardens. The program model has garnered critical praise from community seed savers across Canada, in part due to its rapid development and well organized systems. Our recent success has enabled us to expand the development of seed libraries and better develop our program model. LifeCycles is now working with Surrey Public Libraries and is supporting Richmond Food Security in working with the Richmond Public Library to create their own community maintained seed collection.