06 Dec 2021
When a pandemic hits, and you’re told you can no longer run your annual tomato sale, what do you do?
“Think outside the square,” said Thea Young, Garden Specialist at the Majura Primary school in Watson.
“We’re trying to teach our kids to think outside the square, but as adults we don’t do it enough. So we needed to work out how to hold the sale without going down the normal garden path. Pardon the pun,” she chuckled.
The tomato sale is in its sixth year and is usually run out of the Majura Primary Stephanie Alexander garden. However, the ACT’s lockdown prompted a major reorganisation.
Instead of the usual 10 volunteers, Thea and just two P&C volunteers raised the three and a half thousand plants from seed during lockdown. They managed to offer a whooping thirty varieties of tomatoes.
“We had to do it from our own houses because we couldn’t be on site to do it .. and we raised double the amount of plants. So, it was a pretty big project.”
It’s just as well they did so, because the sale raised an astounding $11,500.
“It was an amazing community response,” she said.
Thea Young credits the tomato sale success to a number of factors, and says the pandemic actually helped as well as hindered.
The pandemic had already created a larger than normal customer base because of this year’s focus on home gardening.
The already popular sale was also assisted by going online. As a result of social media marketing, placards going up at shopping centres and the use of a QR code for people to make their purchases, the sale reached many more willing tomato buyers.
The click and collect system was the last piece of the pandemic fundraising puzzle to keep everyone safe and still run a much loved primary school fundraiser.
“We had very little left over. Most lines sold out.”
The funds will go towards a revamp of the 13 year old kitchen garden. Thea Young is now planning for new wicking beds, renovating other beds, and creating beautiful break out spaces and multi-use areas for Majura Primary students to take lessons outside in a COVID safe way.
