Biggest Little Garden in Town
This is a story I wrote for Vancity in 2010. Part of a series of 18 stories about their grantees.
Vancity supports the work that Fraserside Community Services Society and the South Fraser Women Services Society do in promoting balcony gardens for low-income families in New Westminster and White Rock.
The Biggest Little Garden in Town just might well be one of the biggest little ideas in Canada.
In 2007, Diane Cairns, the Director of Living Well Programs at Fraserside Community Services Society had a vision: in ten years vegetables would be growing in every nook and cranny of New Westminster, and that the city would be renowned as the biggest urban garden in the world.
She imagined walking down streets and through parking lots lined with vegetable planters. She pictured fresh vegetables growing in every public space, from parks and alleys to courtyards and school yards. She breathed in the smell of the fruit trees that would surround every public building, from City Hall to hospitals to libraries.
“I came up with the idea of providing balcony, container gardens to people living on a low-income in apartments when the local food bank told me that they were having trouble getting donations of fresh fruit and vegetables,” recounts Diane.