Come enjoy our public garden space at the McMillan Arts Centre in Parksville. Join us in promoting local food security and independence Visit our Community Pantry in downtown Parksville at Moilliet and Hirst.
We’re looking forward to our AGM this year, and you’re invited. We’ll have progress reports, financial reports and board elections, but most exciting will be the strategic planning for 2025 and beyond. We developed a ton of goodwill, momentum, and capacity to grow, gather and distribute fresh food to our neighbours, so it will be exciting to talk about where to go from here with all this momentum. Opportunities to get involved and get creative with our local food systems will be available.
We wanted to take a moment and give a good round-up of our incredible 2024 summer season, and take the time to thank everyone who helped make this year so amazing.
We ended the season with a total of about 2500 lbs of fruit gleaned, and another 500 pounds or 1000 units of garden produce grown and distributed through the garden itself. That’s about 5 times our 10 year average for gleaning, owing mostly to our new ability to move the produce through the Community Garden. In the past, we could only pick as much fruit as we could distribute, and a lot of our home garden produce got wasted without reliable distribution. We especially liked how other local gardeners started bringing their excess produce to be shared.
Our Light It Up Fundraising Raffle was also a big success. We didn’t sell out of tickets, but we did manage to raise enough money to add some grow lighting and set forth on a winter gardening adventure in our brand new greenhouse. Congratulations and thanks to Robin Curry, our grand prize winner, who won the $2500 jackpot, and who gifted half that amount back to the garden. That’s so generous, thank you Robin.
We’d like to thank the Parksville Qualicum Foundation for awarding us a grant for $14,000 as part of the Oceanside Prosperity Fund. We’ll be able to use that for operations to be able to build a sustainable business model to keep our organization vital and growing and able to continue on.
Our public piano painted by local artist, Kat CuellProgress from ground-breakingOne of our hydroponic installationsOne of our regular visitors and a super-cool guy.One of our workshop presenters in the greenhouseThe garden at sunsetOur main contractor Dwayne Atkinson, with the Springford Table The Muse, public art installation3000 pounds of food gleaned or grown and sharedThe seating areas at the front of the gardenMembers of our Board of Directors and the MAC’s unstoppable Jennifer Bate, who has been so vital and supportive of this projectOur beautiful new greenhouse, finally installed mid-July 2024
Another highlight was the awarding of the $2000 Springford Foundation grant, with which we’ve built the Springford Family Harvest Table, that’s presently installed in the greenhouse and awaiting more workshops.
We were super-stoked for the installation of the pubic piano, painted by local artist Kat Cuell. It was completed in mid-August and saw quite a few impromptu players before we had to put it back inside for the winter. Looking forward to more concerts and players next summer.
We’re booking our upcoming season of workshops and events. In addition to our food and gardening workshops, we hope to see a yoga class or two, a meditation class, some plain air arts meet ups, some music, and even just community meetings and meals. Please email pqbfruit@gmail.com to book your event or class.
Our AGM is coming up on November 27th at 7pm inside at the MAC, anyone is welcome, and we’re going to take the time to make some plans for next year’s gardening season, well-established and appreciated in our space. Look out!
