Contact : Emily (04)934-9798 or Andrew (04)381-3037

Imagine a garden just around the corner filled with vegetables, flowers and fruit trees, your neighbours, friends, children and their pets - and the garden was all yours to play in, grow in and eat from. Then imagine one of these gardens in every greater neighbourhood of the Wellington region.

If you wander around Christchurch these days you will see community gardens popping up all over town. Go to Auckland and you will find the council in the process of writing up policies to create community gardens in every suburb. So here in greater Wellington, while there are already 17 gardens under the care of Operation Green Thumb, a new group of citizens are preparing to help create even more. The new group called 'Growing Community' grew from the 'Park Up' people that recently planted the garden in Tonks Ave on the proposed inner-city Bypass route. "After seeing such a beautiful place created and feeling the amazing community spirit of those 30-40 people involved, we thought hey why stop here? Why not give everybody a community garden?" says member Emily Bailey.

The aim of the gardens, say the group, is not just to replant abandoned land but to help people learn how to grow their own food again and so increase their independence. It also provides them with a lovely place to hang out and meet their friends and neighbours. Hopefully space can also be provided for murals, sculpture, hangi and /or barbecues.

Growing Community meets for the first time at a public meeting for council workers, aid and funding groups and any other interested people that might like to get involved. The meeting is to be held at 6:30 pm in the Green Rooms (above Calzone on the corner of Courtenay Place and Cambridge Terrace) on Tuesday November 13th. For further information contact Andrew on (04)381-3037 or Emily on (04)934-9798.

Please also note some upcoming projects : garden and planting day at the Catacoumbs on Willis Street and planting day on Kensington Street, Nov 17th (also on the proposed Bypass route).

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