Have you seen our amazing new community garden and orchard? This space exemplifies what community should be: welcoming, engaging and safe.
The efforts put in by the community garden committee are not taken for granted as this has been a vision for years, but it took this special group of talented volunteers to see it through.
The TGCA Board wants to express our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation for their dedication, commitment and tenacity in bringing us over the finish line. Maureen O’Brien was the driving force behind this incredible team, please read her message below.
Have you seen our amazing new community garden and orchard? This space exemplifies what community should be: welcoming, engaging and safe. The efforts put in by the community garden committee are not taken for granted as this has been a vision for years, but it took this special group of talented volunteers to see it through. The TGCA Board wants to express our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation for their dedication, commitment and tenacity in bringing us over the finish line. Maureen O’Brien was the driving force behind this incredible team, please read her message below.
It Takes a Village by Maureen O’Brien
I am one of the core group of 4 that have planned and built this amazing new project. A project like this takes a ton of people and organizations to make it happen. This has been a crazy one – many days moving forward three steps and then the very next day getting pushed back two.
But with all the frustrations; soil being stolen, no water available, delivered trees being 27x larger than expected. It’s incredible how it all went down. That is thanks to a massive “village” of people and organizations that came out to help.
A very special thank you to the core team of Sandi Hegland, Jennifer Frank and Alyssa Olichny. We started planning this project in 2022. My partners have been amazing and so much fun to work with. The saying goes when you need something done ask the busiest people you know, and this is certainly true of these special people. Despite many personal commitments they never failed to step up and have been the inspiration and motivating force to bring our vision to life.
Thank you to:
The City of Calgary has been so generous in helping us with the cost of our irrigation and through the donation of soil and several fruit trees.
When our soil was stolen and Gil Tucker told our story on Global television, we heard from so many people we can’t name them all but here a few highlights:
• The Citadel Community Association reached out. They had just completed their community garden and wanted to donate all their leftover soil.
• Paul who owns Wheatland Services from way out south of Calgary who offered to deliver a load of soil.
• Heather from a commercial greenhouse in Three Hills also wanted to bring us a “bale” of soil and as well donate vegetables and herbs.
• Donna Leibham wanted to help pay to replace our stolen soil.
• Golden Acres offered to replace our soil and volunteered to fill the remaining boxes.
• Kyle Redfern from Eagle Lake Landscape who offered to not only replace all the stolen soil, but to also supply us with enough soil to enhance our new tree and shrub bed that was to be planted.
It doesn’t end there:
• Canadian Tire donated our composter, garden hoses and hand tools.
• Janet Neilson from Eagle Lake nurseries spent an enormous amount of time going through heights and widths and details of trees when we had to once again pivot from our original plan. She wanted to be sure we would be happy with our choices.
• Kevin Phillips – saw the ad to come fill boxes (which he did) and then volunteered to come back and remove a bunch of sod for us.
• Trevor Anderson who owns “Lil Green Urban Farm” volunteered to spend an evening and rototill our shrub bed.
• Jesse Carter an arborist volunteered his expertise and has spent hours advising us and spent an entire day managing the planting of our giant trees that had to be craned into the holes. I honestly do not know how we would have accomplished that without him. And he brought along two of his friends; Jeremy and Heather, who are also arborists and they came as well and spent their time planting trees.
• Matt Davis who owns Adair Tree Service has been over the top generous. He helped us dig holes in the pouring rain and donated and installed the green tree bags on our new fruit trees. He also had his company haul away a ton of debris for us. His business comes highly recommended, so please reach out to him if you are needing your trees serviced.
• Felicia Lacey, Irene Wishlow, Cheryl Gullanson, and Victoria Oni. All spent hours, and many of them when it was getting too dark, digging, transplanting and sweeping. Never complaining and always showing up. They are a huge part of us getting this garden and orchard complete this season.
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the TGCA team of Kevin, Les and Vanessa who went above and beyond in so many ways we could never list them all. Their efforts were instrumental in helping us achieve this outstanding result.
Finally, you really rely on the people closest to you on a project this big and with that said I want to give a huge thank you to my husband Grant and my daughter Michelle. Grant helped wherever it was needed no matter what it was needed doing. Our daughter Michelle, a designer, donated many hours and designed our signage.
To everyone involved, thank you from the bottom of my heart.