Neighborhood Small Grants Story: The Quesnel West Village Garden
Emily Neilsen
November 27, 2024
I would first like to thank NSG on behalf of all our volunteers for their contribution to our beautiful community garden. The money we received was put to good use.
The West Village Community Garden is nestled within the heart of West Quesnel. We have had this location for over a decade, the garden has grown and changed. Old members have left, new ones have come in, and some have been there since the very beginning. Most of the members are retired and contribute much of their time to starting plants from seed at home and putting in many hours of hard labor. Some, like me, work full time jobs and contribute when they can and in different aspects, such as applying for grant opportunities and building relationships with organizations in the community.
What we grow doesn’t always just go to the garden members. We are friends with organizations like The Green Hope Society and Nourish Food Bank. When we have too much produce to handle, we call them up and they come and accept large donations of fresh organically grown produce that they take and then distribute to people in need in the community. As we all know the price of living and food is too much for most people to handle. We also supply our harvest to the local emergency homeless shelter, as they use it to cook food for the outreach van that distributes harm reduction supplies and a hot meal to people in need in rural areas of Quesnel. We have used the local university’s greenhouse to start our plants in the past. They are always happy to support us.
This year we used the grant funds to purchase maintenance materials. New hose, straw for protecting certain varieties of plants for the old winter months, stepping stoned in between the peas and beans, rebar to reenforce our planting beds and to use as tomato steaks, a new watering wand, hardware cloth for protecting fruit bushes/trees, and a part for making our hoses longer to reach the outer edges of our ever-expanding garden.
Attached you will find receipts for our purchases and photos of the garden. We thank you so very much for your contribution, and for all the communities that you support. The picture of the birds was the sandhill cranes migrating south at our very last community garden meeting, what a beautiful moment.
In kindness,
“Gardening is a great way to assuage loneliness, as plants are constant companions that inspire us to look for beauty in simple things.”
