By Eva Mabayoje | General Manager
We recently started a new concept which is called: Social Gardening. It has a lot of different aspects in it, which is probably why we are so enthusiastic about it!
The basic idea is to clean/clear up gardens of people who are unfit, either physically, socially or financially, with a group of volunteers. Besides doing that, which is something that we've done before, we're now looking extra carefully at the environmental and social aspect. For this reason, we not just work with our volunteers, we ask for help with a professional gardener. The idea is to create gardens which are environmentally save, which attracts insects like bees in a natural way, which deals with rainfall in a natural way and which is also easy to maintain. But a garden also has a social function. It gets people outside of the house and into life. Especially life with others. We therefor hope to fight loneliness mostly common with the elderly.
Last Saturday we had our first Social Gardening project which had all these aspects in it. We worked together with the company who owns the building and therefor the communal garden. The project is an apartment building which houses mostly 55+. We attracted a gardening professional who works with the Salvation Army. Which meant that not just he and the volunteers got busy, but also people who are trying to work out a homeless, possibly with substance abuse, situation into a way that leads them back to work.
It was a windy day, but really fulfilling. The new garden became beautiful with lots of flowers, herbs, birdhouses and a bee house! The volunteers did the work and of course Present was there to attract the elderly who live in the apartments. We had coffee and cake and a lot of them came by and had a talk about how they loved the new garden and how they hope this new garden will help with social gatherings and a better social environment!
Of course Present will track this new situation and already offered them to help organize a summer event to get people more involved with their neighbors!
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