Garden where patients can blossom, too
CAMH’s urban haven provides a life beyond diagnosis, a space to gain skills and grow food
“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop and all that,” says Jamie Game, a chef by trade and a volunteer at FoodShare’s Sunshine garden.
I look at his hands. They are big, covered in dirt and dust — they are not idle hands. Behind Game, there’s the garden itself, an urban haven right on the grounds of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Queen St. location. In the winter, FoodShare moves its program to its year-round greenhouse where the volunteers learn basics of growing food, where seedlings get ready to be planted once the growing season begins.
Right now, it is the season and on this sunny morning, there are five busy people in the garden, and they are tending to rows of plants — weeding, watering, planting. It’s quiet and serene, hard to believe that we are right in the middle of Toronto in this oasis tucked in between the buildings of CAMH, next to the fence surrounding a concrete basketball court of the forensic unit. Contrasts. Game gives an example of another one, “I go outside in the city and people have issues, but here, in the garden, you can be yourself. This is my magical world.”
The magical world of FoodShare started its partnership with CAMH in 2002 and it’s been a great refuge to many clients of CAMH. Liz Kirk, the Sunshine Garden senior co-ordinator, who’s been with FoodShare for eight years, says she’s seen remarkable changes in the clients who have volunteered to work in the garden.
“One client who was in-patient on ward saw the garden from his window and he started doing sketches of it,” she says.
“He volunteered with the greenhouse and has been with the program for five years. He went on to study landscape design at Ryerson.”
This is precisely the magic of FoodShare: you could say many of its volunteers — 20 to 30 outpatients and patients with illnesses such as schizophrenia, addiction, anxiety or depression — blossom and bloom along with the plants.
“They stop focusing on just their diagnosis, they can focus on something positive, feel that they make strong contribution they can feel proud of,” Kirk says.
And gardens really do help people. According to the Community Food Centres Canada “Mental Health Benefits of Community Gardening,” paper, “There is a substantial body of evidence that shows that, when taken together, the essential components of a community garden program (growing plants, spending time with others in a safe and supportive environment, being active outdoors and bringing home healthy produce harvested from the garden) can contribute to positive mental health outcomes.”
Game, who hasn’t drunk in six years, says the garden, “is the only thing that kept me sober. It doesn’t ask for anything, it doesn’t talk — it’s like a bottle of alcohol,” he laughs and says how gets a “rush” from seeing things grow, the beauty of it, but unlike alcohol, “the garden gives me more than I could give it.” The clients, like Game, can be self-referred or be referred by a clinician. The program is very popular — there is a waiting list.
FoodShare is in the midst of a crowdfunding campaign aiming to raise $20,000. The funds are needed to help to maintain the program and to expand training and the number of sessions it offers to its clients, and extend the program beyond the summer months.
Besides being beneficial to the vol- unteers’ mental health, FoodShare has a more practical aspect to it. It produces 500 pounds of food — from berries to herbs to squashes — and the clients get to learn not only how to plant and grow, but they can also learn how to cook or make preserves.
Many of the clients are on limited budget and being a part of FoodShare provides “food security,” which is “the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food,” according to a definition.
Besides using food for their own consumption, the clients are also involved in the community market — Mondays and Wednesdays on Queen St. near Shaw from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. — where they get the opportunity to practice selling skills, talk to people from the community and share recipes. “It helps to lessen and break down stigma,” Kirk says and quotes the sad statistics: According to Canadian Mental Health Association, “70 to 90 per cent of people with mental health issues face barriers of employment.”
She says, “It’s hard to get back on your feet. The program helps to build self-esteem; it socializes people who might not have social contact because of their illness.
“I’ve seen clients who were withdrawn, who wanted to work by themselves and within a couple of months, they’d grow confident enough to make friends. It’s a huge confidence boost.”
I think of my own garden that used to be just a patch of dry earth and broken concrete steps. I no longer have that garden but the memory is a happy one — getting busy and dirty, planting grass, cedars, raspberry bushes, herbs, flowers. I think how doing all that work, too, kept me sane as I fought to stay sober in my own journey to recovery.
And when the time came to reap the rewards, I was in awe of the plants that grew, the fruit that I could eat. And I would look around my little jungle and think: I made this — I created something magic. I felt proud.