Gently Used or New Garden Supplies Needed for Refugee Garden

At the Lakemoor Hills Garden Club meeting earlier this month, a special guest from Bridge Refugee Services talked about this project described below.  They need to collect supplies prior to the end of the month of July.

If you have items that you can donate, please contact Jessica Barousse at [email protected].

Bridge Refugee Services is working in partnership with the Trinity Foundation and with UT Gardens to develop a community garden to use as a therapeutic tool for newly arrived refugees or for those who have struggled continuously with PTSD or emotion regulation. Since a majority of the cultures Bridge works with do not value therapy, or rather mistrust it. Therefore it is essential to find alternative means to help encourage the therapeutic process with refugees through alternative means especially for those clients who are struggling to find work, have a previous history of experiencing extreme violence and oppression, and fleeing for their lives.

Bridge needs to purchase and find materials, as well as expert gardeners to help coordinate this program. They intend to build two 4×10 raised beds and need a hose, cardboard, fill dirt, darker organic soil mix (8-12 inch deep for each bed), organic fertilizers, mulch, and volunteers 🙂 

Once established, they will plant crops that are easily grown in this area, including green beans, squash, cucumbers, kale, spinach, turnips, cherry tomatoes. As an added bonus, there is a team working on converting an old bus into a storage and utility shed for this project that will be an added piece of art.

​If you have any equipment, bags of soil, seeds or fertilizer that you can donate, please contact Jessica no later than Sunday July 30.  Thank you,