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Online votes sought for food garage plan

Rene Michalak is once again asking for online votes to help advance the innovative Food Garage project.

Rene Michalak is once again asking for online votes to help advance the innovative Food Garage project.

The initiative would pair an existing 22-foot-by-24-foot garage with a 26-foot dome greenhouse at Michalak’s family’s former Oxford Street home, creating an environment where fish are raised, more energy is generated than used, and enough food can be grown year-round to feed a family of four.

All of the legwork on planning, designing, and securing permits for the project has been done, and now construction is ready to take place on the geodesic dome.

But Michalak, the managing director of ReThink Red Deer, needs $15,000 in funding to get the materials for the build.

With enough votes, that total could be garnered through the Gardens For Good campaign run by B.C. company Nature’s Path Organic Foods.

The contest pits the Food Garage project against dozens of other small gardening initiatives from Canada and the U.S. Phase one of the competition is based solely on online votes, with the top vote earners moving on to the second phase where the entries will be judged and one Canadian winner chosen.

Michalak’s project has been successful in two online campaigns already this year, having won the Face Your Footprint contest in March — allowing for a website redesign, promotion and education — and earning $15,023 through online crowdfunding in June.

Those funds went towards creating engineering drawings and a business plan for the project.

But the latest crowdfunding drive, to raise the money needed for construction materials, failed when the $15,000 target was not met. In crowdfunding campaigns, if a target is not reached, none of the pledged money goes towards the project.

The contest is run through Facebook and can be found at www.facebook.com/naturespath. People can vote once a day until Sept. 30, when the contest closes.

For more information on the project and for renderings of the design, visit www.foodgarage.ca.