Some of you might remember a blog we did around Australia Day titled ‘Our House: Celebrating ‘HomeGrown’ A Gardening Program for Community Housing Residents’. It’s about the HomeGrown community program Vegepod has set up with the help of Southern Cross University and the Federal Government. The aim of HomeGrown is to assist social housing groups in setting up communal gardening programs for the residents, helping tenants feel less socially isolated while gaining more community pride.

Since Australia Day 2019 (the date of our last blog), we have set up a whole bunch more Vegepods in many more housing residences. From Dunedoo to Brisbane, and Walgett to Scone, the program is growing like the plants in a Pod and it’s amazing to see the positive impact it’s having on the residents.

A big shout out to the following entities who have been initiating programs over the last few months with us:

• Compass Community Housing 
• Link Housing 
• Goodna Community Health Centre
• Queensland Department of Housing and Public Works

Compass Housing particularly have been really proactive in using Pods for communal garden spaces and activities. Here’s a quick ABC segment on one project with Compass Housing out at Broken Hill that explains what these groups are setting out to do: 

This program is truly one of our most meaningful initiatives and it’s amazing to see residents enjoy getting their hands dirty. Here are just a few pics of the progress made over the last couple of months:

Tenants from Holland Park in Queensland working side by side with the Queensland Police to install a Vegepod community garden - talk about building a bridge!

Little gardeners, Hannah, Alicia and Mia have taken ownership of the Pod at the Community Hub in Broken Hill. They’ve cleaned out the baby spinach leaves and are waiting for new ones to sprout! 

A month after set up at a Hornsby residence, familiar faces were out and about working on staking and fertilising the veggies. One of the housing employes noted “I’ve been doing social activity stuff and talks with groups like this for over twenty years. I have never seen anything actually make clients put all our principles and visions into action like this gardening. It’s all I want to do now in this field!” 

HomeGrown is just one of the many community programs we’ve embarked on over the last year. If you’d like to find out more about HomeGrown or any of the other programs check out our ‘Community Gardening Programs’ page. If you have a HomeGrown opportunity for the Vegepod team please get in touch via email at simon@vegepod.com.au.