In February 2019, SOG was informed it had received a grant of $24,400 from New Horizons for Seniors for the duration of March 2019-March 2020. The purpose of the grant was to support volunteerism among seniors involved with SOG.

This ultimately allowed SOG to support the following sites.

The garden sites were (all in Ottawa, ON):

  • 1909 Russell Ave; 1445 Clementine Ave;
  • 125 McLeod St; 205 Gladstone Ave;
  • 300 Lacasse Ave; 395 Somerset West Ave;
  • 3020 Woodroffe Ave and 3123 Carp Rd (Carp, On).

The first 6 sites are located at Ottawa Community Housing communities and the last 2 are located at community gardens.

The non-garden sites were:

  • Ottawa Carleton Immigration Services Organization (OCISO),
  • 959 Wellington Ave (facilitated by Diverse Seniors Services, Jewish Family Services, Ottawa),
  • Nepean Rideau Osgoode Community Resource Centre seniors’ group located at 30 Woodfield Drive
  • NROCRC Brain Health Group also located at 30 Woodfield Drive Ottawa.

Overall, 73 volunteers were engaged (including 25 youth from Vincent Massey Public School who helped at 1909 Russell Rd) and 112 participants benefited (who were not volunteers). Volunteers included SOG volunteers, people assisting the seniors at garden sites, garden committee volunteers at sites and volunteers at non-garden site groups who coordinated meetings etc.
Also in 2018, SOG was awarded a grant from the Ottawa Community Foundation. This grant was for $15,000 and expired in March 2020. This grant allowed us to further support the sites above and expand support to 300 Lacasse (as they required a fourth year of support), a project of the Mechanicsville Community garden supporting seniors at the St. Vladimirs’ Community on Stonehurst Ave.

As well, it allowed us to explore an in-home pilot project (Model 2) in which we reached out to seniors living alone in their own homes to provide small group gardening workshops (East Orleans Group and Celebration Avenue Group). The OCF group allowed us to offer programming to the Gloucester 50 plus group (garden workshops), the Bronson Hub (Flo’s Seniors) and the Seniors’ Group Jami Omar in Kanata (through OCISO). Approximately 110 seniors were supported by this grant.

The OCF grant also allowed SOG to engage the services of a Nutritionist (Karen Germann), who provided workshops on nutrition from the garden to many of our sites.

Most importantly, the OCF grant allowed us to develop a “Train the Trainer” workshop model to offer 2 educational workshops to community groups, community developers and others who seek to work with seniors in garden settings. These workshops focused on the logistical, sociological and economic framework of gardening with seniors (which is neglected in general community garden workshops), with a special focus on conflict mitigation, communication and physical support.

In September 2019, SOG was awarded a $4000.00 grant, the Seniors’ Community Grant (Government of Ontario) to provide a winter workshop series 918 workshops) to existing sites. These were offered to OCISO, the Brain Health Group, 300 Lacasse, 1445 Clementine Ave., 1909 Russell Avenue, Bronson Hub, Gloucester 50+Centre, 205 Gladstone, 375 Somerset (an OCH site) and SNMC.