What started as a local community garden project to promote healthy eating and support local food initiatives is blossoming into a nationwide enterprise.
Mother-and-daughter team Lynne Koss and Marissa Wiltshire co-founded Thornhill’s Seeds for Change organization, which provides free workshops and resources to help schools and communities plant their own gardens. By helping people grow their own food, the project digs into issues such as obesity, hunger and food insecurity.
“We wanted to make a positive change in the world,” said Koss. “And we thought we would start in our backyard.”
Currently, six gardens have been planted in and around Richmond Hill and Thornhill. One garden planted at Richmond Hill’s L’Arche Daybreak, a community that supports persons with intellectual disabilities, grows organic produce for its local residents.
However, as in the case of the Growing to Give Garden at Vaughan Fire and Rescue Service Station #7-1 near Bathurst Street and Clark Avenue, almost all of the fresh proceeds go to local food shelters or directly to the disadvantaged.
Building on its current numbers, the organization’s newest initiative challenges York Region to plant 2,015 new gardens by the commencement of the 2015 Pan Am/ParaPan Games.
Koss and Wiltshire began their garden movement in 2010.
Now, they are poised to partner with the Ontario Gardens Community Network in September to bring Seeds for Change to the rest of the province. With the help of sponsors such as Whole Foods in Unionville, the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Koss said she expects the program to go national soon thereafter.
