By Mikayla Van Loon
The newest project from The Mustard Tree (TMT) in Lilydale launched last week, adding extra opportunities for volunteers to learn gardening skills.
Transforming what was once considered an unusable space in the car park into a lush vegetable garden, it aims to bring a holistic and circular approach to what TMT already does.
A collaboration between the staff at TMT, volunteers and wcig, a Workforce Australia service, the community garden was brought to life over four months to officially open on Friday 15 December.
TMT manager Lisa Vincent said the op shop was able to provide job seekers from wcig with retail experience by volunteering in the shop post pandemic and from the relationship just developed.
“The volunteers who have come to us through them have been brilliant. In fact, most of them have stayed on beyond their obligation to be here, which we’ve never experienced before. It’s been fantastic,” she said.
Having always wanted to get a garden project off the ground but unable to secure the funds, when wcig received a grant, a new element of the entities’ partnership formed.
Bringing on the help of volunteer gardener and project lead, Paul Weller, the garden was able to be established from idea to planting in just four months, with construction starting on 4 September.
Ms Vincent said it was her hope the community garden would add more opportunities for job seekers and volunteers to grow in their skills and understanding of the environment through the garden.
“We have two main roles and one is to provide food for the community and there are outlets of the cafe, the food bank, and also the community will just come and help themselves.
“The other area is to provide the volunteer an opportunity for them to come and feel part of a team and to build something and to develop some employability skills.
“So that’s the other side of it, the human side, the people side of it, which I think is just a lovely extension of what a community garden already is, to be able to utilise it in that way.”
Only previously able to offer job seeker opportunities in hospitality and retail, Ms Vincent said the garden has the ability to “appeal to a broader demographic”.
“We had five positions available [in the garden] and we had people come and go but now that it’s all built and most of the work is done, and we’re in the maintenance phase, we will offer about 10 places to wcig.
“They need to be prepared to work in all areas, so the garden may be their main focus, but there might only be an hour or so of work each day watering, weeding, harvesting, pruning and then they’ll come into the shop or the cafe and they’ll do some jobs for us inside. So we’re putting it all together.”
Seeing what working together can achieve, Ms Vincent said collaboration is key to improving outcomes for people looking for work, as well as supporting the community.
Produce from the garden will also be used in the TMT cafe kitchen, to provide the community with fresh recipes based on the seasonal varieties of fruits and vegetables.
With projects already on the list for 2024, Ms Vincent said she will be working towards creating a sustainable pathway for donated items to be repurposed, while creating work opportunities for people in the community.
“This has opened the door to other opportunities if the funds are available to set things up, even opportunities that perhaps don’t need all that funding either.
“I like to think of us as a social enterprise and keeping waste out of landfill is a huge challenge for any business that deals with secondhand items because a lot of our donations, we try to do what we can with them so they don’t end up in landfill.
“There’s a lot of upcycling, reusing and repurposing activities under that sustainable social enterprise concept that I would like to explore next, with our Work for the Dole participants. So that’s the next thing on the list for me.”
The Mustard Tree op shop, cafe and now community garden, as well as a food bank service, can be found at 3/28 John Street, Lilydale.
