Grow to Share with Churches
Back in May, our neighbour St Peter Chanel church came up with the idea to bulk order seasonally from our spray-free nursery, co-ordinating their order with a planting day for church members. For their winter garden we were able to support them with over 250 vege seedlings and 17 fruit trees from our Ko’anga nursery. Now in September, their veges and fruits are still thriving and looking super luscious with many harvests enjoyed by their families. They are due for their next order for a summer garden mid October.
St Peter Chanel church garden members, winter planting with seedlings from PVA’s Ko’anga nursery.
In June, winter proved to also be a good time to start conversations on planning and designing the spaces around other prospective churches.
One church we connected with was Tāmaki Pacific Islanders Presbyterian Church (PIPC). There we met Reverend Elama Maea and found out he was such a passionate gardener.
Tāmaki PIPC working bee. Peep Rev. Elama’s thriving Papaya tree!
PVA start our Grow to Share groups off with 4 macrocapa boxes from Cypress Sawmill, but with a resourceful and abundant mindset, Rev. Elama turned those 4 boxes into 7.
Not only that, with the help of free, recycled wood from Trow Group, he built more garden beds in two more different spaces.
After filling these boxes, we had a big planting day where we supplied over 230 spray-free vege seedlings from our very own Ko’anga nursery. It was awesome to see the eagerness and leadership from Rev. Elama, and by the end of the day every box was full of plants ready to thrive.
Another church we started journeying with is Faith Family in Panmure. We had a big working bee putting together their first garden boxes and how inspiring that Rev. Elama and the men of PIPC volunteered to do the build with them. Churches supporting churches! Absolutely humbling. Now the boxes are made, PVA plans to return for an end of October planting day, with summer seedlings from our Ko’anga.
At the Kai Regional Hui, Māngere East we were honoured to support showcasing the amazing mahi the Free Church of Tonga have been doing to help families have better access to healthy kai. Proving you just need one passionate person, to lead change. To end off the hui we planted fruit trees that we picked up from the local plant store, on the edge of their church sports field. After a deacde of dreaming, FCOT has plans to finally put in more fruit trees and garden boxes to strengthen kai resilience for their church community and beyond, and we will be right by their side journeying with them to make this happen.
Huge acknowledgements to Petelo and Bex of Auckland Council and Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board for their unwavering support for a food secure Tāmaki.