07/07/2025
These extraordinary, hardworking, generous people need 💰💰💰 to pay some bills ... If anyone has ideas please contact Joe's Connected Garden 🌱
SOME HONESTY FROM US TO YOU….
We are struggling at the moment and hope that you can come up with some fund raising ideas to get is through this hump of extra costs and reduced income. We started the gardens as a hobby and there’s never been any thought of turning it into a business but we are at crunch time right now, mainly because of increased operating costs especially outrageous water bills with the dry weather. The March quarter was over $8000 for the houses in the gardens and we are very water conscious and have lots of tanks – you cannot grow food without water! We got extensions, but still have not paid it all and the next quarter will be in soon although hopefully because there has been some lovely free sky water it will be less than half of that. There are lots of other costs associated with having such large gardens.
We have always worked on a shoe shoestring with very few grants. We got a nice one about ten years ago and have had a few small ones since but on the whole, Joe has bankrolled the whole thing which has become more difficult since he retired about three years ago. His generosity is legendary and we started off giving free workshops but have increased this to a token amount but it doesn’t cover expenses. Joe does a lot that most don’t know about including giving most mornings a week to running free classes to school children from various groups including special needs – home schoolers, indigenous, assisted learners and so on – that are so much appreciated by the participants but it doesn’t pay the bills. Our main income source is selling plants and most of that comes in at our annual Open Garden in February which is a long way away. The plants are usually sold at half retail or less.
This is Rosanne writing this as I look after the money/bills and I am worried. I’ve also had a few health and personal issues which have prevented me from upping my garden workload. More on that later if you are interested. I’ve always been extremely strict about paying things on time, being reliable and having a good reputation so this is stressing me out no end so I am asking for some help here with fund raising ideas. Some thoughts:
• Is Go Fund Me still a thing? Does it work? Has anyone tried it?
• Social events. We have some excellent cooks on deck(the boys, definitely not me!) and a wonderful wood oven so we could provide yummy food too. Some thoughts I had were movie nights (either general movies or sustainability focused), quiz nights, just a general party(when the weather gets better) and here’s a new idea. How would people like having a private dinner with us which included a Q&A session where you could get personal advice about your own gardening issues. Say a table for four or six and what would you pay for that?
• Putting our prices up a bit…I’d need to do some serious arm twisting on this one!
• Just asking for donations! This would be a real stretch for me as I don’t know anyone who has cash they don’t know what to do with but if you ask, you never know what response will come!
• Spend more time researching and applying for grants. This is a very time consuming process and I am not able to put anymore time and energy into the garden in the short term. I have personal things requiring immediate attention – mainly the huge task of moving myself into my new home after my marriage to Andrew in October. There is never enough time for this and it’s the top priority in my life right now to declutter and give/throw excess away and create a new organised home without all the boxes…
• Much as I hate to think about it, I will be 80 next year and crippling arthritis means I am very limited in what I can do. I think I am still mentally sharp (please tell me if I am deluded!) but I am overwhelmed and exhausted and at the risk of too much information, I am sharing the current reality with you to see if we can come up with a solution so that the gardens will continue to flourish even after we are all gone.
That’s our dream! Any ideas how we can stay afloat so the whole community benefits?
