The People’s Potato Community Garden produces fresh produce for free campus meals and community donations, and is located on Concordia’s Loyola Campus.
STATUS: ACTIVE
SOCIAL: @thepeoplespotato
WEBSITE: www.peoplespotato.com
ADDRESS: H-733 1455 de Maisonneuve West Montreal, QC
CONTACT: peoplespotato@gmail.com
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
The People’s Potato Garden is a lesser-known but important part of the People’s Potato ecosystem at Concordia. It connects the food-security project (free meals) with urban agriculture, volunteering, and food education.
The People’s Potato Community Garden is located on Concordia’s Loyola Campus in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG) neighbourhood of Montreal.
It operates mainly during the summer months and is considered the organization’s main summer project.
The garden is run by the People’s Potato collective with volunteers from Concordia and the surrounding community.
Its goals are to:
- Support food security initiatives connected to the People’s Potato kitchen.
- Grow fresh organic vegetables
- Provide hands-on gardening opportunities
The garden grows vegetables and herbs that can be used in several ways:
- Supplying the People’s Potato kitchen
- Some produce (especially herbs and garlic) is sent to the downtown kitchen used for free lunches.
- Volunteer sharing
- Volunteers who contribute time can sometimes take home produce.
- Community donations
- Surplus food has been donated to groups such as the Head & Hands food pantry.
PHOTOS
KEY CHALLENGES: Theft of vegetables!
KEY SUCCESS: One of the longest-running campus gardens!
SERVICES
- Summer garden
- Volunteer program
GET INVOLVED
Weekly volunteer sessions May – October
Please fill out this form to join their volunteer mailing list and keep up with their garden news!
TIMELINE
1999 — Founding
- The People’s Potato is founded by Concordia students as a student-run vegan soup kitchen responding to rising student poverty and lack of affordable campus food.
- The project is rooted in food justice, community organizing, and anti-poverty activism.
2008–2009: The People’s Potato Garden is founded on the Loyola campus.
The project was designed to:
- Grow fresh local produce
- Create a green community space away from the downtown campus
- Engage volunteers in urban agriculture.
- Seedlings were provided by the Concordia Greenhouse before they ceased seedling production in 2020.
NEWS ARTICLES:
Videos
https://www.youtube.com/@ConcordiafoodgroupsCa/search?query=potato