Green inspiration for Wesley Church
Members of the Wesley Methodist Church were inspired by food garden community activist and artist Tori Stowe to start planting vegetables so they could eat from their own gardens. Stowe spoke at a special high tea hosted to raise funds for the church on Tuesday. They sold 80 tickets for the event.
The high tea opened with a prayer and the reading of Psalm 100 by minister Sandile Kalipa.
Stowe then spoke about the successful gardening projects being run in Bathurst.
“[It] has been an extremely encouraging year,” Stowe said. ‘The eight big gardens which belong to the schools, crèche and clinic have been really thriving, to the extent that we needed something else to focus on.”
This is the Gogo! project in which Stowe and her assistant go around to identify individual gardens that need help and they develop each one.
“So far we have done three and we are working on our fourth home garden where we help with fencing, planting a variety of seedlings, seed, herbs, flowers and succulents and fixing whatever needs to be done,” she said.
Stowe said Nolukhanyo Grow had supported over 70 home food gardens in the past two years. She said helping did not take a lot of effort, and encouraged others to try .
She also thanked members of the Wesley Methodist Church for their kind donations of children’s clothes, gloves, beanies and blankets which she has distributed to crèches and families in need.
There was also entertainment with a performance by the Lost Chords choir and a touching poem about African pride was read by local poet and writer Pat Whitfield.
The funds will be distributed to various charity organisations the church supports.