Silverbeet harvested at Werribee Park will go towards an important cause.
The vegetable, which is grown in the park’s famous parterre gardens, has been planted and tended to by culturally-diverse community volunteers and young adults with a disability, from support services provider genU.
Werribee Park area chief ranger James Brincat said the silverbeet leaves would be picked and bagged as part of the harvest.
The silverbeet will then be sent to the Sikh Community Kitchen to be cooked and packed into free meals for Wyndham community members in need.
Mr Brincat said that last year, 3000 kilograms of silverbeet from Werribee Park’s gardens was used in about 1000 meals per week during the winter months.
“Apart from the mountain of weeding – it’s not a bad result for a community project run by the community for the community,” he said.
The idea of using the Werribee Mansion’s historic parterre garden as a vegetable patch to help feed people doing it tough started during the COVID pandemic last year.
Mr Brincat said the initiative stemmed from the Working Beyond the Boundaries’ partnership between Parks Victoria and refugee settlement agency AMES Australia.
The project was so successful that it has become an annual program at Werribee Park.
AMES Australia chief executive Cath Scarth said the partnership between her organisation and Werribee Park showed how people could come together to help others in times of need.
“This is a great outcome and shows what can be done with a bit of imagination and initiative,” she said.
