Five Acres Documentary

The Five Acre Farm has been saved! The city has agreed to purchase the farm and preserve it as park land. All of the funds raised at the Five Acres Documentary screening (some $37,000) is being held in trust and will be used for Nanaimo Foodshare Society urban farm projects at Five Acres after a public consultation has been completed. A huge thank you to everyone who got involved, donated time, energy and funding to help make this happen!

Five Acres is making it's Facebook premiere at 6pm today! We hope our wonderful community of supporters will share this post widely.

A huge thank you and shout out to everyone who came out tonight! What an amazing evening and what a beautiful community we have! We had a full house at the Port Theatre for the Five Acres Premiere and Foodshare fundraiser. And we raised over $37,000 between ticket sales and the pledge auction! Nanaimo has so much love!

On Tuesday, July 16th at 7 p.m., you can watch the premiere of the new Five Acres documentary at The Port Theatre. Five Acres is a film that explores the past ...and present of farming in #Harewood, a #Nanaimo neighbourhood once more commonly called Five Acres. During the 1880s, when Nanaimo was a bustling coal mining town, Samuel Robins, superintendent of the Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Company, made five-acre plots of company land that had originally been part of the Harewood Estate at the base of Mount Benson available to coal miners and their families. By allowing the miners to lease or eventually own the land for an affordable price, Robins created one of BC's first planned agricultural communities, and enabled local families to provide for themselves, even when the coal market was unfavourable and employment was precarious. Today, the Five Acres Farm at 945 Park Avenue is one of the last intact lots that has remained agriculturally based in the original Five Acres area. In 2018, the Five Acres documentary project, led by a Nanaimo-based filmmaking team (including local MP Paul Manly for Nanaimo-Ladysmith), was awarded a $50,000 Telus STORYHIVE grant to create a film exploring the history of the property, and its transformation into an urban community farm. The passionate and dedicated volunteers who work the farm today not only produce local food, but also have created an inclusive space where people with diverse abilities can learn about horticulture and gain valuable farming experience. But the future of the Five Acres Farm grows more uncertain with each new housing development that springs up around it. Community grows here, but will it continue to flourish? Directed by Paul Manly and Laurie MacMillan, research for the film included the work of local historians, stories shared by elders of the Snuneymuxw First Nation, and the farmers, educators, and volunteers who use the land today. Tickets are $22 in advance, or $25 at the door. This premiere screening is a fundraiser for the Nanaimo Foodshare Society's urban farm projects. For more info see: https://www.porttheatre.com//five-acres-film-premiere-food or the Five Acres Documentary Facebook page. . #NanaimoHistory #DiscoverNanaimo #LocalHistoryMatters Five Acres Farm Harewood Manly Media

We are having a very special premiere screening of Five Acres at the Port Theatre on July 16th. Mark your calendars and save the date! Full details coming soon.