Municipality of Shuniah

Inspired by a presentation from Roots Community Food Centre, Shuniah Council made a call-out to the community for interest in a community garden program in late 2014.  Volunteer organizer Peter Tracz and the initial nine community gardeners spent the next year working with the Municipality to design, build and lay out their beds.  Free designs from Roots CFC were used to create a template that was easy to reproduce as needed, and the beds were laid out in a way that makes them easy to access and to move freely between them.  Some of the beds have been built to waist height to serve additional accessibility needs.

Since they opened with nine beds in 2016, Shuniah Soil Mates has grown to have 35 active vegetable garden beds as well as a memorial flower bed kept by the group in honour of Pte. Josh Klukie.

Peter Tracz says that after the initial call-out to the community to start the garden project, the Municipality of Shuniah continues to support Soil Mates by providing the land, a free water supply, loaned tools, and other resources like the delivery of materials and lawn mowing.  He says the program brings residents of the municipality together to share in the love of growing and gardening and to build a stronger sense of community.