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Organizers stake their claim for Bruce Botanical Gardens in Ripley By Liz Dadson |
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 Staking their claim for the Bruce Botanical Food Gardens in Ripley are sustainable project designer Lynne Taylor (L), Huron-Kinloss deputy mayor Wilfred Gamble, Allan Ribbink of the Penetangore Regional Economic Development Corporation, Huron-Kinloss mayor Mitch Twolan, administrator Mary Rose Walden, Bruce County warden Mike Smith, and Heather Pletch, grant researcher and sustainable community facilitator | |||||
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Municipal
officials joined the organizers of the Bruce Botanical Food Gardens
Wednesday afternoon (Nov. 16), to "stake their claim" on the land east
of the Ripley soccer fields as the location of this project. Project designer Lynne Taylor and grant researcher and sustainable community facilitator Heather Pletch were joined by Huron-Kinloss mayor Mitch Twolan, deputy mayor Wilfred Gamble, administrator Mary Rose Walden, Bruce County warden Mike Smith, and Allan Ribbink of the Penetangore Regional Economic Development Corporation, to drive in the stakes. Currently, the project is in a contest through the Aviva Community Fund, to win a substantial grant toward the cost of building the gardens. The contest is into round three and this is its last chance to make it into the semi-final round, says Taylor. "We are encouraging all participants, new and existing, to gather a group of three to four friends, relatives or co-workers, to join them in voting every day," she says. "If we could get all of our supporters plus new ones to do the same, we could very well end up in the semi-finals." Voting is easy. Visit the website at: www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf11223; go to Register, fill in your E-mail address and password, respond to the E-mail that they will send, then log-in, search for 11223 or Ripley and vote daily. If you have a Facebook account, you can log-in even faster through it in order to vote - EVERY DAY! The voting for this final round continues until Nov. 30. The gardens are aimed at increasing food security in Bruce County, says Taylor. At present, 10 per cent of Canadians live in food-insecure households. In fact, according to Statistics Canada, 9,379 people in Grey and Bruce counties lived with moderate to severe food insecurity in 2006. In 2005, seven per cent of Grey-Bruce children and youth (approximately 2,400) were living in poverty and they were also more susceptible to living in food-insecure households. The Grey Bruce Health Alliance 2010 report notes that only about one-in-four students typically consumes the sufficient fruits and vegetables intake.
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The Grey Bruce Health Unit states that 58.6 per cent of adults are
obese or overweight and our youth are among the heaviest in the
province.
The Bruce Botanical Food Gardens will not only produce food, the project will work to inform visitors to this county about the plight of the Ontario farming community. Plus, it will provide a destination for agritourism, entertaining visitors through the imaginative and innovative presentation of food plants and teaching about natural food production and processes. It will educate visitors on the serious issues of food security that face our population at a regional, community and personal level. The project will be built in three phases, the first phase to begin in the spring of 2012, at a cost of about $145,000. Beds would be ready for 2013 planting. For more information on this project, go to www.bbfg.org or Email: ltaylor@bbfg or hpletsch@bbfg.org Scrolling stops when you move your mouse inside the scroll area. You can click on the ads for more
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