Who is Involved?
This Garden Group is entirely volunteer-based. Participants include members from the existing Crossroads Community Garden, members from Église communautaire de la rivière-Rouge (ECRR:156, rue Marion), Holy Cross Church, and other interested community organizations/individuals. We are also working with a member from A Rocha Canada (www.arocha.org)

Who is it for?
The Community Garden is for anyone in St. Boniface!
The goals for this community garden are:
• To provide a place where people from the community can interact with each other and build community connections
• To provide fresh vegetables for the Holy Cross food bank, and provide an opportunity for clients of the food bank to be involved in growing food
• To provide public pick plots for people in the Traverse Park neighbourhood (ie: strawberries, herbs, rhubarb, tulips, other)
• To provide individual and group plots for neighbourhood people and organizations

Support and Supplies:
This is a very low-budget project. Soil, garden tools, water barrels, compost beds, and seeds and bedding plants for the public pick and foodbank plots, would all be solicited from St. Boniface businesses and individuals. We are hoping that several neighbours along the north side of the park would be willing to provide the garden with access to water for filling water barrels during the growing season.

Timeline:
With proper support from the community, we hope to have the garden up and running by the spring of this year, if that is not possible then perhaps to turn over the sod in the fall of 2010, and plant in spring 2011.

FAQ:

How much will it cost?
This is a non-profit project. We are hoping to make the initiative as cheap as possible. We may charge a small fee for supplies and maintenance. If there is a charge involved, low income families can apply to have the fee waived.

What about all the people who use the park field?
We don’t want to get in the way of anyone using the park. We are aware that the field is used for sports, play, and exercising pets. We are hoping that the proposed garden site won’t intrude too much into common recreation areas. The site is as far to the back as the field as possible. Please let us know if you feel this will interfere with your uses of the park!

Do I have to live in the community to have a garden plot?
People in the neighbourhood have first dibs on the plots. If you do not live in the community, feel free to apply for a plot anyway, and we can put you on the waiting list.