Gardener in chief recruiting volunteers for the Food Bank community garden.

graphic community 2By Pepper Parr

April 24th, 2021

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The Burlington Food Bank managed to have 7 plots in the community Garden on Maple Avenue assigned to them.

They then had to find a volunteer who would oversee the operation of those 7 plots.

That volunteer would then have to recruit a volunteer crew to manage each of the plots.

Sam LaGRand 2

Sam LeGrand and Robin Bailey at the market garden site on Maple Avenue

Robin Bailey, Executive Director of the Food Bank did the interviewing and felt he had the ideal volunteer – Samantha LeGrand, who prefers to be known as Sam.

The two of them did a short interview on-site where Sam asked for people to foster some of the seedlings she has – she has run out of space at her own dwelling.

Sam LaGrand 1

Sam LaGrand – Good Bank gardener

If you think you could look after some of those seedlings please go to the Food Bank web site and register as a volunteer and then select the tab on the registration to do with Community Garden help.

In early May Sam will need volunteer help for planting, and then subsequently help for watering and weeding throughout the season.  You can contact  Sam at garden@burlingtonfoodbank.ca

Sam brings an eclectic education to the gardening she is going to supervise – she is the kind of gardener who gets her fingers dirty.

She was a student at OCAD, the Ontario College of Arts and Design where she studied drawing and painting – she has had a number of gallery showings.  She was also a student at Western University where she studied astro-physics and creative writing.

She said she loved the job she has at the Children’s Place; retail was something she liked.

Gardening is as much a passion as it is working.  Sam knows gardening – she has some ideas for the different designs she wants to use – high yield is one of her objectives.

The community gardens in Burlington – there are now seven of them – was the result of work done by Michelle Bennett and Amy Schnur when they approached city council in 2015 looking for support on an application they had made to the provincial government to create community gardens.

The province required municipal support for every grant they provided – at the time city council wasn’t all warm and fuzzy about the idea.  They were reluctant to put up some real dollars.

Amy and Michelle weren’t prepared to walk away from the project – they convinced the Parks and Recreation department to put in the water service that was needed.  From that point on community gardens were real – they sold out the day they were opened.

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How Burlington community gardens got started

 

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