The Community Place Garden is one of those ideas that could have been born, lived and died in the space of time a few people took to have coffee together, but instead became reality.
The creator of the idea is Ingrid Meyer who is an active member of the local Food Security Committee (FSC) – a broad-based and multi-sector committee.
Meyer approached Dave and Gord Dickie with the idea that their recently cleared and levelled building lots on First Street and Birch Avenue could be a community garden space.
The Dickie brothers agreed to the idea and Meyer took it to a FSC meeting to propose they take advantage of the garden space. Rita Giesbrecht brought it under the Agri-Culture Enterprise Centre (ACEC) umbrella to see whether there was a master gardener in the community who could take on the job, and put the word out for participation.
Rod Endacott, of Enchant Landscapes, has spent the last couple of years in an intensive study of the art and science of permaculture, and a number of enthusiastic individuals have stayed keenly interested and involved.
Endacott envisioned an initial plan, and a strategy for developing the garden using permaculture values.
The final and crucial player was the District of 100 Mile House, and planner Joanne Doddridge who worked with the Dickies and Endacott to clear details like zoning, water access, boundary surveys, and a lot of pieces that have to be in place for the project to succeed.
All of these individuals played their parts, and the FSC is proud and pleased to have been the incubator for this amazing opportunity that has come to fruition, Meyer says.
The potential in the Community Place Garden is lives could be changed as children and young families have a chance to get their hands in dirt, see food coming out of the ground, learn self-sufficiency, respect, and care for the land, and are nourished in ways that are currently not possible in their lives, says Giesbrecht.
“It is inconceivable to many that insufficient food is a daily, weekly, yearly reality for people in an area such as ours, but the numbers are growing every year, of people for whom emergency food provision has stopped being occasional and become systemic.”
The Cariboo Family Enrichment Centre took the lead in establishing the FCS, which now includes a substantial list of participants, with the ACEC as a second lead participant.
“It is our shared vision that nourishing, consistent, respectfully sourced, food be sustainably available for our most vulnerable population, and in that way create a strong, healthier, safer and more wholesome community,” Giesbrecht adds.
“All are invited to share this vision and join this wonderful movement. If not us, who? If not now, when?”