MAINTAINING sustainable gardening practices and creating community connections have been ongoing at the Barwon Heads Community Arts Garden for more than 14 years and Geelong-based services like genU have already jumped on board.<\/p>\n
genU’s community-run Bellarine Connections program took NDIS participants to the community arts garden, where they met Senator Linda Reynolds and Corangamite Liberal Party candidate Stephanie Asher to showcase the garden.<\/p>\n
The Barwon Heads Community Arts Garden caters for people who do not have access to their own gardens or do not have enough garden space at home.<\/p>\n
Barwon Heads Community Arts Garden’s coordinator Ian Linley said the garden holds 40 gardening plots for the community varying in terms of size which makes up their 100 total members.<\/p>\n
genU’s plot has created a vital community connection with the Barwon Heads Community Arts Garden.<\/p>\n
“We see the group once or twice a week, they either tend to the garden or sit around having a pleasant time and take a little bit of produce home every now and again,” Mr Linley said.<\/p>\n
“Groups like genU are one of the primary reasons why we worked hard to attain a city grant to build a new greenhouse, fully accessible for people in wheelchairs and with disabilities.<\/p>\n
“One of our committee members has become quite close with genU’s photography group, so we have a few of their photos on display to give them a bit of promotion.<\/p>\n
“The group certainly livens up the place.”<\/p>\n
Bellarine Connection’s Community Connection facilitator Elaine Onekawa said the garden visit was “warm”, “inclusive” and “empowering to be a part of”.<\/p>\n
Ms Onekawa’s main objective is to make participants feel included and set them up with connections within the Bellarine.<\/p>\n
“Once the participants are set up with these connections like they are at the garden, they can then become independent and become active members of the community,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The connection Bellarine Connections has with the garden has been an ongoing one, but it will be a community organisation that we will continue introducing to our participants.”<\/p>\n
The garden also boasts a communal veggie patch, an orchard, a room for meeting, a covered space with cooking and storage facilities, a pizza oven, a kid’s play area and a poly house for propagation and seed raising.<\/p>\n
To find out more about what the Barwon Heads Community Arts Garden has to offer, head to
\nwww.bhcommunityartsgarden.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MAINTAINING sustainable gardening practices and creating community connections have been ongoing at the Barwon Heads Community Arts Garden for more than 14 years and Geelong-based services like genU have already jumped on board. genU’s community-run Bellarine Connections program took NDIS participants to the community arts garden, where they met Senator Linda Reynolds and Corangamite Liberal […]<\/p>\n