Butterflies and Blooms, as you may recall from last summer, is a non-profit organization, here on the North Shore, that partners with various groups to provide activities for seniors and the disabled, primarily through gardening in some capacity.

Through the fall and winter we were busy securing grants to continue our activities. Thanks to funds from the North Shore Area Community Health Board, Municipality of Pictou County, and NS Health Protection and Promotion, we are now ready to roll out our 2009 season.

So far we have three or four potential partners who have expressed an interest in working on a project with us. In Tatamagouche we’ll be working with the residents at Willow Lodge in and around their patio gardens and perhaps in their vegetable patch too. We also hope to be able to extend this project to include activities with the VON Adult Day Program for frail seniors and disabled adults, which is also run on the Willow Lodge premises.

We also have projects on the go in River John, where last summer we built two raised flowerbeds in the Remembrance Garden behind the Legion, we are in discussion with the new Time Outs for Seniors project.

We are also discussing with Summer Street Industries to partner in a program for the intellectually challenged of our area. This program would serve the communities of both River John and Tatamagouche.

All these projects lend themselves to a whole array of horticultural therapy activities. There’s lots of room for innovation and new ideas. And it’s all great fun.

So whether you’re a serious gardener, or if you know absolutely nothing about gardening, but would like to help kindle a smile on the face of a senior or a disabled person, please give us a call. Perhaps you’d be curious to learn more about horticultural therapy? In any case, we need some help – we’re not necessarily talking commitment here, simply a one-time visit would be great. We’ll give you something useful to do and you’ll go away happy, – guaranteed!

If you’re unable to participate, but have a little wisdom to share – that too would be more than welcome!

For more info, please contact Joan MacKeigan at 351-2697 or macmarwa@gmail.com.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 11:45 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.