Hello and thank you for considering making a donation!
If you are not already familiar with us, Toms River Moving Forward (TRMF) is a local volunteer community organization established in February 2014 as the first chapter of the Moving Forward Initiative. We build free food community gardens, host environmental cleanups 2-3 times a month, have workshops such as herb spiral buildings, and community gatherings such as biking, yoga and drum circles. We are working on starting larger encompassing projects such as habitat restoration (planting trees, monarch waystations, etc), water filtration (specifically mycofiltration and floating island construction), and soil remediation (through permaculture-centered gardening, introduction of specific fungus and plants to soil, etc).
TRMF has been paying for everything we needed to purchase out-of-pocket by community organizers bit by bit. We have established connections between our municipality and groups/businesses for some materials, such as cleanup supplies from Toms River Public Works , seeds from MEVO, and logs from Brian’s Tree Service for bed borders, hugelkultur mound making, etc. We have also hosted drives for supplies and had a lot of great donations from individuals all over Ocean County.
However, we are currently finishing up on two community gardens and trying to finish two more as soon as possible. In order to make this a reality this growing season – and get started on other projects! – we are fundraising to purchase supplies we need. As of right now, we are totaling costs at about $800 to finish all sites and start our new projects.
Approximate breakdown of costs:
$150 – Wood, for building raised beds at EMS Station and 6th Avenue
$150 – Fungi spawn, for food production and remediation (shiitake, oyster, reishi, king stropharia, etc)
$200 – Plants/Trees, primarily perennials and fruit/nut trees to create permanent/lasting community spaces and start working on a food forest!
$100 – Tools/Materials, for building and cleaning, such as shovels, rakes, nails, muck boots
$100 – Rainwater Catchment materials, including barrels, hookup, etc
ALL funds will go to TRMF projects, with priority on finishing the garden plots we have now. We have opened a bank account specifically for TRMF and will be publically posting our fundraised spending for complete transparency. We are not yet a registered non-profit, which means your donations are not tax-deductible. (Sorry! Next year!)
Thank you so much for reading, and even if you can not donate – or don’t want to – please spread the word! There are a ton of other ways to help, such as assisting us in transporting supplies, coming to garden work days/cleanups/gatherings, planting pollinator habitats at home, mentioning us to friends/family, and so on! :)