Well all know that eating salad is good for the waistline, but did you know that it can also be good for your community? In Halifax, a youth-driven social enterprise called Hope Blooms makes it easy to eat your greens and support grassroots philanthropy with their line of locally grown, handmade salad dressings.
Hope Blooms is a garden/salad dressing social enterprise that engages at-risk youth (ages 5 to 16) in the development, marketing, and sale of “Hope Blooms Fresh Herb Dressings.” Youth make all of the venture’s major decisions, such as choosing what to grow, attending board meetings, developing products, and taking their salad dressings to market. Revenue from the enterprise goes toward a scholarship fund for inner-city youth, as well as the purchase of the seeds, soil and ingredients used to produce the salad dressings. The number Hope Blooms participants has increased substantially each year, allowing even more youth to become active change agents in building their dreams and futures.
To find out more about Hope Blooms, check out their website and follow their parent organization’s updates on Twitter via @NorthEndCHC.
Ps. If you have a favourite Canadian social enterprise to share with us, we’d love to hear from you in the comments section!