Last night the Acton Community Garden celebrated the second annual Community Garden Tour, located at beautiful Rotary Park! The Community Garden is a collaborative and cooperative garden that is available to the community anytime.
The Acton Community Garden was started in 2012 by Allison Jones and Debbie Bentley. It since has expanded in size, members and collaborations in the community.
Mayor Rick Bonnette made an appearance at this year's event alongside local councillors Mike Albano, Jon Hurst and Clark Somerville, all whom were delighted to participate in this year’s tour.
Elin Kaia Marley, a representative of the Halton Environmental Network who looks over the garden shares, “this is a community garden that grows for the community. The community helps feed the community.”
The tour’s goal is to educate locals on the plants, vegetables and harvest that is available to the community, all the while creating family friendly fun and activities. Councillor Jon Hurst, who built the shed for the community garden along with Acton High students shares with Acton UP,
“Its an opportunity for for people to get together, it’s just a really good opportunity for people to come together and show community spirit”.
Councillor Mike Albano, long time garden volunteer was also on hand.
“This garden is not fenced and it’s for anyone to help themselves,” comments Councillor Albano, “we have the seniors building across the way, that they come occasionally and pick some food, but the garden is open to anyone.”
This year’s community garden tour will be Rick Bonnette’s last year as Halton Hills Mayor, although bittersweet, Bonnette is glad to celebrate this special occasion with the community.
“This garden has been a vision for about seven or eight years. We wanted to create a place where those who are less fortunate in the community can plant and harvest greens. With the cost of gas going up, produce is expensive and all this inflation it’s somewhere where people can come to. The bottom line is it’s of huge importance to the community.”
Meghan van Doorn who is a Environmental Education Coordinator with Halton Environmental Network, shares the reason for the event,
“We’re going to do a quick run though all of the vegetables here and talk about where they are going to be donated to”. Meghan says “were trying to connect with some of the community fridges, specifically the one at the Acton Public Library and there is another at the Roxy Centre, so we were going to do some drop offs, hopefully tomorrow.”
Meghan also shares that the volunteers with the Acton Community Garden have been outstanding and a wonderful source of help for the community. Ultimately, the Acton Community Garden cannot thrive without the help of the community, as garden coordinator Elin Kaia Marley tells Acton UP, “we depend on each-other to grow.”
The garden is open at all hours and is available to anybody who wishes to visit, grow and harvest greens or help pick some weeds. One can find more information regarding the Acton Community Garden at their Facebook page, here.
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