Gawler Community Gardens
It’s been 8 years in the making, but now the Gawler Community Gardens is about to turn a neglected block of land into a vibrate, productive community garden. Kalie, our manager of mission and strategy, recently met volunteer committee members Tracey, Debbie, Andrew, Ron, and Amber at the block land in order to provide them with one of our CHS Community Grants to get them started.
The vision of the volunteers is to provide a safe sustainable community garden that is inclusive for all. Gardeners young and old will learn and share their knowledge, plants, recipes, and medicinal uses with their community.
In the future, they hope to establish sessions with nursing home residents in conjunction with the physical therapy coordinators. The Gawler Community Garden aims to be inclusive and flexible to target all capacity levels and age groups.
The benefits of gardening to older people include:
- Improved physical health, as it promotes physical activity and gentle movement reducing health issues such as osteoporosis and exposure to Vitamin D.
- Improved mental health, as the garden promotes social interaction and reduces isolation which is often associated with the older person and in particular country residents.
- Improved nutrition from the growing of healthy foods.
The community garden aims to be all-encompassing and the committee is acutely aware of the value of encouraging the participation of older people not only for their benefit but for the insight, knowledge, and experience they have to share.
The grant funding will be used to buy, build and establish 7 raised garden beds which will enable people with physical restrictions to be able to participate without stooping or bending.
There will be wide and firm paths to assist those who need wheelchair and pram access, and the gardens will also include a Kiddy Corner next to the main garden and workshop space to help support parents who want to engage more with the community.
It is an exciting venture that we are more than happy to support with one of our grants, and they have also attracted support from the Food Forest and the Gawler environment centre which has been great.
Volunteers have also started gathering but they would love more, so if you live local to Gawler and if this interests you then you may wish to contact them via their facebook page – gawlercommunitygarden
They would be keen for grant-writing volunteers as well as people who would literally want to get their hands dirty.
