A $2,000 cheque was presented to the WNCHC by the Club Richelieu Sturgeon Falls, to help support their youth community garden program. (L-R) Dietician and project lead Brooklyne Buckley, WNCHC Executive Director Guy Robichaud, Director of Community Health Program Renée Vaillancourt, and WNCHC volunteer Jeannette Sylvestre accepted the cheque on Tuesday May 16, from Club Richelieu SF president Marie Paul Roberge. 
Members of the Centre Social et Culturel de Lavigne (CSCL) presented a $1,000 donation to Renée Vaillancourt, WNCHC Director of Community Health Program (right) on Tuesday, June 23. The funds are going to support the WNCHC’s youth community garden project, which has expanded this year to include Lavigne.
Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
The West Nipissing Community Health Center’s (WNCHC) youth community garden is growing – literally and figuratively – and it’s been attracting lots of support. According to the WNCHC’s Director of Community Health Program, Renée Vaillancourt, the project is on its second year and has become very popular among both the youth participants and the adults involved. Thanks to their enthusiasm, as well as $11,200 in various grants and donations, the project is expanding beyond the initial garden at the WNCHC in Sturgeon Falls, with two new gardens sprouting up in Lavigne and River Valley.
“The program is designed to promote food access, community connection, and has a link to enhancing environmental stewardship. It’s tailored to youth in the community,” describes Vaillancourt. While the obvious focus is growing food, the program also gets the youth involved in every aspect of getting food from the soil to the plate, and learning multiple skills in the process. It starts from woodworking skills needed to build the garden boxes where they will plant the food, to planting, harvesting composting, “and eventually they’ll be able to participate in some cooking classes and other types of environmental education workshops.”
On the food access front, the community garden also helps impart some crucial information about healthy food. “We know that in Ontario, food insecurity is on the rise, so initiatives that can help strengthen food knowledge and access are extremely important. We know that community gardens alone will not solve food insecurity, but they can really help build resilience,” Vaillancourt explains, adding that “food literacy” is an ever-important skill.
