Growing 1,000 young leaders in Auckland from seed

Delicious Revolution: 1,000 Young Growers for Tāmaki Makaurau

Plants produce all food on earth. Most people were never taught how to grow them. Delicious Revolution is here to change that.

Our Mission

Delicious Revolution exists to raise a generation that values nature and has the skills to work with her. This spring, we're putting seeds, soil, and growing knowledge into the hands of 1,000 young environmental leaders across Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) — supporting students to become producers of their own ecosystems and reconnect with the natural world. Students can self-select or be nominated, and each chooses one path: grow a food and flower garden, or grow a forest garden — harvesting, collecting, and propagating native trees and plants.

Why This Work

Over the past ten years, I've worked with thousands of young people, students, and community leaders across Auckland to teach the skill of growing from seed — because I believe this is the single best work we can do to restore humanity's connection to nature. It is also the best thing we can do for a heating planet. Climate change is a symptom of an overheating Earth, and plants are what cool her down. Training young people to produce their own food and grow their own forests from seed is, in simple terms, the highest-leverage investment we can make in the future of life on this planet. Tāmaki Makaurau is where I'm from, and it's where this next chapter begins.

The Problem

Horticulture in Aotearoa is a dying industry. Young people don't want to be part of it — they see it as drudgery, not as the most fundamental work on Earth. Meanwhile, most school garden programs hand students seedlings already grown by someone else. That's the equivalent of a food handout. It skips the most important part of environmental education: teaching young people to be producers — to start a life from a seed and steward it through to harvest. Without that, we're raising a generation that doesn't know where their food comes from, doesn't know how to grow it, and doesn't see themselves as participants in the living world. There is currently no product on the market that gives young growers the seeds, tools, and ongoing weekly support they need to actually succeed.

Our Solution

This spring, we're resourcing 1,000 young environmental leaders across Auckland with everything they need to grow their own ecosystem from seed. Students can self-select or be nominated by teachers, whānau, or community members — recognising the young people already showing care for the natural world and giving them the tools to step into deeper leadership.

Each student chooses one path at the start — food and flower garden, or forest garden (harvesting, collecting, and propagating native trees and plants). For $100 per student, they receive seeds, a propagation tray, and 26 weeks of online video support carrying them through the full growing season. The location of the growing is up to them — their school, a community garden, their home, or a family farm. This is part of the point: we're extending the invitation beyond the classroom, into extracurricular care and real-world environmental practice. The real world is full of plants, and that's where this learning belongs.

Because the project is Auckland-based, we can also do what no online program can: host in-person pickup events, hands-on sowing workshops, and follow-up gatherings at Manurewa High School, OMG Urban Farm, and community gardens across the region. Every young leader gets the personal touch alongside the structured weekly content.

This is the missing rung on the ladder — a structured, supported, end-to-end growing experience that transforms a student from someone who plants a seedling into someone who can start an ecosystem from a seed packet. By the end of the season, we estimate 1,000 young growers will have produced approximately 250,000 seedlings.

The Opportunity

Tāmaki Makaurau is fertile ground for this work. Delicious Revolution already holds multiple council contracts delivering environmental and ecological education to over 20 schools across the Auckland region. The network exists. The students exist. The teachers and whānau ready to nominate environmental leaders exist. What's missing is the resourcing to take that network deeper — to give the young people inside it the tools, materials, and weekly mentorship to become true growers, not just garden helpers.

This project is also one piece of a larger movement to grow 10,000 new growers across Aotearoa. Auckland is the proving ground. Every young leader trained here becomes a node of growing knowledge in their home, their school, and their generation. Environmental leadership in young people doesn't come from being told nature matters — it comes from putting your hands in soil and watching life respond.

How We Regenerate

Delicious Revolution's approach is holistic. We don't just distribute seeds — we build the human infrastructure that keeps growing knowledge alive across generations. Our work spans urban food gardening, community food forests, school programs, and a working urban farm in central Auckland. Every kit we send out is part of a wider ecosystem of teaching, mentorship, and community. By choosing food or forest, students engage with one of the two foundational systems that sustain life on Earth — and gain transferable skills for either path.

Tracking Impact

We'll track:

• Number of young leaders nominated, enrolled, and completing the program
• Number of schools and Auckland communities participating
• Number of gardens created
• Number of seedlings produced (food, flowers, and native trees)
• Square metres of garden or forest brought to life that wasn't there before
• Attendance at in-person workshops and follow-up gatherings
• Student-reported confidence and connection to nature (pre/post survey)
• Qualitative stories from students, whānau, and teachers about what shifted

Our Experience

Delicious Revolution has been doing this work at scale for years. Our flagship project is a 6,500 square metre urban farm at Manurewa High School, New Zealand's largest high school — now integrated into all levels of school culture, life, and curriculum. We also operate OMG Urban Farm in central Auckland, established in 2018, which has produced 24 tonnes of food and 9,000 vegetable boxes to date. We currently hold multiple council contracts delivering environmental and ecological education to over 20 schools across the Auckland region.

Most recently, we trained 250 Auckland city centre residents to grow plants from seed using the exact resource packs and trays this project will use. We ran a campaign to grow 20,000 sunflowers inside one of Auckland's largest hospitals, raising funds for the Starship Foundation. Across our programs, we've trained hundreds of volunteers and inspired thousands of people to grow food from seed and learn to work with nature.

This project takes everything we've learned, anchors it in our home city, and uses our existing network to take 1,000 young environmental leaders the deepest they've ever gone — producing a quarter of a million seedlings for Tāmaki Makaurau in a single season.