Good, clean and fair food for all!
Good, clean and fair food for all!
1st and 3rd Thur! We continue to operate on the 1st and 3rd Thur of the month from 8.30am. Bring your bags and enjoy our local seasonal produce. What can you expect? This market offers more than the opportunity to purchase...
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Free, local, seasonal seeds! You don’t need money, you don’t need a credit card, you don’t even need a shopping cart. You just need a trickle of water, a sprinkle of sunshine, a little bit of dirt, a stitch of...
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Through this Slow Food Hunter Valley initiative we have: been cooking to supplement the food needs of the Maitland community since 2014 provided an average of 4000 meals per year to those in need used almost rescued and donated food...
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Slow Food Hunter Valley welcomes all volunteers on our projects and at our events. If you are keen to make a difference in the food system and be part of a larger international organisation that does work at a local,...
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These different ways of engagement allows people to do as much as they can within their own comfort zone.
Funds from paid memberships go to local initiatives. Members can also be elected to the Executive Committee. See our Become a Member page.
Our volunteers are the backbone of our projects and allow the work of Slow Food to continue on a local and regional basis. See our Become a Volunteer page.
Through individual donations and corporate sponsorship local people and businesses can help support Slow Food. See our Donors and Sponsors page.
If you are not sure how you want to engage with Slow Food, simply attend any of our events or meetings and see what you think. Many of our volunteers and members attend events in order to understand how and where they might fit with our volunteer workforce.
At Slow Food Hunter Valley – in just one year – our volunteers turned 704 kg of fresh food into nutritional meals for the local Maitland community centre. The food is destined for local families who are finding it difficult to make ends meet. This process is made possible through donations from local farmers, home gardeners with excess produce, Greenhills Fresh Grocer, and our wonderful volunteers. Most importantly it is possible through the generous owners of Reader’s Cafe in East Maitland who offer up their cafe where the food is prepared and packed. It is then picked up and transported by Oz Harvest.
Since March 2016, Slow Food Hunter Valley (through our volunteers) has been instrumental in the creation of a local fresh-produce market. On 3rd August 2017 the Slow Food Hunter Valley market was audited by Slow Food International and received certification as an official “Slow Food Earth Market”. We are proud to say that this was Australia’s first ever certified Slow Food Earth Market. The market provides existing and emerging small-scale growers and producers with a centralised outlet for their produce. It has also increased the number of backyard growers who are now bringing their produce to market.
In the last half of 2018 and into 2019, at the hight of a severe drought, Slow Food Hunter Valley provided drought-relief boxes (packed full of nutritious food) to farmers in the Upper Hunter Valley. Boxes were provided to 40 families on the first and third Thursday of the month. The initiative didn’t just help “feed our future” in the Upper Hunter. This initiative stimulated the economy for our local small-scale growers because the boxes were full of food purchased from them. It provided a vehicle that allowed our community to get involved (by volunteering to pack boxes, through cash donations or by giving produce for the boxes).
Slow Food Hunter Valley is made up of everyday people who, together, realise they can do a lot of great things that make a difference. From time-to-time, we even do a few extraordinary things. You too can make a difference. In fact, everyone can make a difference. Your contribution, regardless of how large or small, helps. So become a member, volunteer, attend an event, attend our meetings, or make a donation. Whatever you can do, it all makes a difference.
I wanted to say thanks for getting these markets together....
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