Newsletter #3 August 2023
Dear Topsoil Community Members,
We’re on a roll!
Since our last update we have successfully launched our first Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) horticulture wellbeing program in partnership with the Community Connections Grant from the Multicultural Communities Council of SA (MCCSA) and the Government of South Australia's Department of Human Services based at The Junction Community Centre, Ottoway.
Your support of our project is now directly impacting the lives of those experiencing social isolation and marginalisation. This is a milestone very much worth celebrating – so, thank-you and congratulations!
The Junction Community Centre provides the North-western metropolitan local community with various activities, workshops and classes. They welcome all people from their district and beyond to participate, have fun and learn from the many activities held in situ.
Laura and Lilly have commenced their work with an initial engagement of 15 participants which span several cultural groups. The Creating Common Ground program works directly with participants aged 18-64 years from CaLD, new migrant and emerging communities. This program runs weekly, on Mondays. We are incredibly proud of the work that our Topsoil members are enacting and are even more excited by the prospects of long-term engagement with a community group to deliver nature-based wellbeing services.
Referrals Welcome!
If you have people within your known community who may benefit from social engagement through the modality of horticulture therapy that also happen to sit within this demographic, please find our attached flyer with additional information. Further, if you have potential participants which have specific language barriers, please reach out by return email and we will provide a language specific flyer and connect directly with them. If your referrals sit outside of this demographic, sit tight! Our NDIS programs will be with us soon!
Future Projections
Concurrently, We have developed a relationship with the Kilburn Peace and Welcome Community Garden and are intending to replicate the Ottoway program on Wednesday’s, weekly.
Similarly, we will be seeking expressions of interest for uptake of this program, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch with further questions or referrals.
Although we are yet to have our approvals to activate our forever home site at Norton Summit, we are actively beginning our deep work within the community, building partnerships and …doing Topsoil regardless!
And do you know what? Gosh does it feel good!
We couldn’t have reached this milestone without every single one of you and hope that this news brings you as much joy as it does us.
We intend to continue these updates on a regular basis, with the hopes that we can move to monthly blog posts on our website currently in development Topsoilgarden.org. You can also keep up to date with Topsoil news and participant bios via our Instagram which we intermittently update @topsoilgarden.
Sending you all of our best,
Lilly, Laura, Rose & Jay