Planting the seeds for connection

FOSTERING community and creating spaces for positive change is a key driver for Lou Ridsdale, who’s celebrating a decade of her Food is Free community garden initiative.

Preceding her work in food security with more than 20 years as a publicist and festival organiser in the Victorian music industry, she said her jump to environmental issues wasn’t surprising.

“Comms really drew me in as a good outlet to hopefully make change in society,” she said. “I loved supporting artists because they’re often on the lower rungs of society.

“I’ve always been a very staunch supporter of the quiet voices, sometimes the ones that are neglected. Independent media can amplify their causes.

“I often did charity publicity and I was the first employee with Meredith Music Festival. I think working with teams backstage, you can see where the synchronicity is and how the magic happens.

“I’ve always been drawn to those circumstances so shifting over to environmental causes was a no-brainer.”

Ms Ridsdale’s career shift began her Munash Organics and Fifteen Trees, the latter of which she still serves as comms manager, before founding Food is Free.

She said the initiative grew out of personal experience following her return to her hometown.

“I’d started gardening for myself after having lived in Melbourne for a couple decades and returning to Ballarat and realising I could actually grow my own produce,” she said.

“My mum had just passed so at the time it was a really healing place and it was somewhere I could focus my energy on happiness and positivity.

“I realised suddenly I was growing way too much and that’s where the idea of Food is Free came from.

“There’s the idea of guerilla gardening where you can beautify and grow food in a space that doesn’t belong to you, for the community.

“Seeing how much food insecurity is still a problem, being able to empower people through growing food is a really lovely gift.”

Ms Ridsdale’s achievements regarding food security and gardening for Ballarat has seen her selected as one of the Zonta Club of Ballarat’s six honourees in their Ballarat’s Great Women 2024 honour roll.