In 2011, The Gathering Place took a step towards becoming more sustainable. With the help of the City of North Bay and a Trillium grant, a previous quarter-acre brown-space in the City was transformed into a beautiful, food-producing garden.
Over the past two years, our Garden Director, summer students and numerous volunteers have worked tirelessly to increase its yield. The summer of 2015 saw over 1600 lbs of produce harvested from the garden for use in our drop-in meal program, a huge increase from the 630 lbs of produce harvested the previous year.
Beyond food production, our garden also serves as an educational hot-spot. Numerous groups are hosted at the garden each summer to learn about a variety of topics including starting seeds, planting seedlings, caring for the plants, composting, harvesting, etc. This knowledge exchange is just one of the ways we are helping to build a more connected, food-secure community.
