Come grow with our community garden

By Heidi Ivall
HCC

The Healthy Communities Coalition of Rainy River along with the Rainy River Farmers Market and the Town of Rainy River, have formed, “The Rainy River Community Garden Planning Team” (RRCGPT). It is our intention to create and manage a community garden.
The purpose of this project is to provide garden space to those residents that do not have a garden and provide the ability to grow some of their own food. Participants will benefit nutritionally and physically from the active living experience that gardening provides. We hope to interest a variety of ages in our project and intend to establish programs for young children and families, as well as provide raised garden beds for seniors.
To date we have secured a suitable site for the garden (which is the south end of Little Street across from Riverview School), installed water, tested the soil, planned and designed the garden, identified program needs to create a budget, and applied for funding from two sources a) Northwest Healthy Living Partnership Program (NWHLP) and b) the Healthy Communities Fund (HCF).
Next steps include preparing the garden site, importing soil and compost, building a garden shed, and generally preparing for a garden season and planting in the spring of 2010. The planning team is pleased at the community interest thus far and looks forward to seeing the soil ploughed and prepared.
A call goes out to area gardeners, folks interested in learning about gardening and/or volunteers. If you are interested in this project, and can help a little or a lot, we would appreciate hearing from you!
We hope to be building a garden shed and preparing the site soon. Please call for details if you can help!
If you are interested in signing up to have a garden plot for next spring, we invite you to register.
It will be helpful to hear from community members in regards to: Who can help? Who wants a garden plot? If you have any questions or suggestions about this project, or can help, we would love to hear from you! Please call Heidi Ivall at the Health Unit (852-3268) or call Norma Blight at 852-3650.