Growing Together – a garden program for young adults with varying abilities, run by the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and Jewish Family Services – is facilitated by Ran Keren. (photo from JCC)
This spring, the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver launched Growing Together, a garden program for young adults with varying abilities, in partnership community with Jewish Family Services (JFS). The program runs biweekly on Sundays through August and is offered free of charge.
“It is well established that spending time outdoors can benefit mental health,” Shiri Barak Gonen, Inclusion Services program coordinator at the JCC, told the Independent. “The JCC wanted to create a safe, welcoming space where members of our community could connect with nature, build meaningful relationships and experience personal growth.
“We also have a deep appreciation for agriculture. Living in an urban environment, we felt that community gardening would be a meaningful way to introduce participants to the growing process and foster a stronger connection to the natural world. We recognized that experiencing the entire growing cycle – from planting and nurturing to harvesting – would provide participants with a genuine sense of accomplishment and pride.
“In addition,” she said, “we recognized that our adult inclusion programs serve a broad age range. This initiative was designed to give our young adults the opportunity to connect and build friendships with peers who are closer to their own age and at a similar stage of life.”
It was developed with a clear vision, she said: “to engage participants in gardening and outdoor activities while encouraging connections with one another, with the facilitator and with nature itself. Once we had that vision clear, we began searching for the right location to bring it to life.”
The JCC initially approached Congregation Beth Israel, said Maggie Wilson, coordinator of the Vancouver Jewish Community Garden, which was established in 2020 by Vancouver Talmud Torah, Beth Israel and JFS, and which is situated alongside the synagogue building and behind the school. However, the congregation realized the program would be a better fit for a partnership between the JCC and JFS, she said.
Wilson and Carol Hopkins, director of food security at JFS, explained in an email that “the JCC coordinates the program, managing participant recruitment, registration and the program facilitator” and, through its partnership with JFS, the program takes place in the garden.
“As part of this collaboration, JFS will lead specialized food literacy programming with the participants,” they said. “The participants have also been given the use of a bed to care for throughout the season. This allows them to experience the full cycle of gardening, from planting seeds and caring for growing plants to harvesting food they have grown themselves, all while building confidence, developing new skills and fostering a sense of ownership and connection to the space.
“By combining expertise in inclusive programming, a shared dedication to food literacy and a vibrant outdoor learning environment, this partnership between the JCC and JFS has created an experience that neither organization could have offered on its own.”
Wilson provides professional guidance and ongoing support for the program, which is designed for young adults aged 18 to 25 with a wide range of support needs. Barak Gonen said the initiative has allowed the JCC “to engage new participants who had not previously taken part in our inclusion programs.”
For the initiative, the JCC recruited Ran Keren, an experienced facilitator, who, Barak Gonen said, “has done an exceptional job leading the gardening activities while also creating engaging outdoor arts, crafts and nature-based experiences that foster learning, bonding and enjoyment.”
“We started our program this spring with learning about the various herbs, veggies, fruits and greens that grow in the beautiful Jewish Community Garden,” said Keren. “Every meeting, we do some work in the garden and connect with the plants in some way; making herbal tea from the garden herbs, printing T-shirts with the garden flowers, putting together birdhouses and bug hotels, and nurturing our own little plot of veggies. There is something dynamic in gardening work, as it depends on the weather and the ever-changing crop growth and cycles, but the most important part in our work and activities is to create space in which we get to know one another, and feel safe and welcome to share thoughts, experiences and feelings. To borrow from [noted Indigenous botanist] Robin Kimmerer, ‘A garden is a nursery for nurturing connection.’ My main goal, and hope is that our program is shaping to be such a space.”
Growing Together is a seasonal initiative, so it will continue for as long as the weather conditions allow. “We hope to extend it through the current growing season and are planning to offer it again next spring, giving participants the opportunity to reconnect with nature and continue building on the relationships and skills developed through the program,” Barak Gonen said.
“There is still space for new participants to join the current program cycle,” she added, “and we welcome anyone interested in taking part.”
For more information, contact Barak Gonen at [email protected]. For more about the garden, go to jewishcommunitygarden.ca.