MEDIA RELEASE 18th December 2008

Womens Refuge Get Sowing And Growing

One inner city Auckland Women’s refuge received an unexpected early Christmas present this year. Patch from Scratch, who specialise in getting beginner gardeners growing their own vegetables, brought the old disused vegetable garden at the refuge back to its former glory.

The overgrown weed ridden beds had been neglected for a number of years and staff with the ‘know how’ to maintain it were no longer working at the refuge. The aim of the project was firstly to get the vege patch providing the clients with nutritious vegetables and also to give them the skills needed to grow their own food once they have moved on from the shelter. Asked why the Women’s refuge were chosen to be the recipients of this community project, Sarah Davies, Founder of Patch from Scratch commented, ‘At the shelter, the women are at a life changing point in their lives and many are starting again with very little. To teach them how to grow veges, is giving them a skill that will enable them to feed their families nutritious meals at very little cost’.

Patch from Scratch runs a community program called ‘Patch helping hands’. Every second month a shared garden is chosen to either be started from scratch or revived to a working vegetable garden. The program relies on the benevolent volunteer efforts of Patch from Scratch staff and generous donations from garden suppliers. For the Women’s refuge project, Tui gardens kindly donated the compost and peastraw and the seedlings were bought with funds raised from an edible garden tour that visited Sarah Davies private garden.

We are currently working on our 2009 schedule. If you know of an organisation or community that would benefit from
‘Patch helping hands’ contact us at sarah@patchfromscratch.co.nz or via the website www.patchfromscratch.co.nz.

ENDS

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