Community Gardens
The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul operates 132 units of supportive housing in total. 90 of those units are located on our 3-acre West Saanich Road site, along with our day care centre and our developmental services inclusion program. There, we have begun a community garden program that includes individual beds, communal plots, and fruit trees and bushes.
We received a three-year grant from United Way Victoria and the Victoria Foundation to address food security through community kitchen and gardening skill-building and have started the capacity-building work required to do this in the following ways:
- We have established a community garden and cooking programs for our tenants and support program participants,
- Our childcare centre has started working with an organic gardener and teaching some simple healthy cooking skills.
- Our inclusion program gardens, cooks, and helps planting fruit trees and berry bushes around our property.