Fatima Halloum
During the biting cold of Melbourne’s first winter in lockdown, most people were working from the warm comfort of their homes.
Soo-Jin Goh was at Werribee Park’s parterre garden harvesting silverbeet.
“I had to work on my own because we were not allowed to work together with the rangers because of social distancing,” she said.
Ms Goh singlehandedly harvested more than 100 kilograms of the vegetable a week.
The volunteer would then grade them according to their quality and have them boxed and bundled, ready to be picked up by the rangers.
The garden was a project started by the horticultural services group just before the beginning of the pandemic.
Despite the challenges covid was causing, Werribee Plains area chief manager James Brincat said the rangers chose to make the best of the situation.
“We thought at that time that covid would be over in a month,” he said.
“We decided to go ahead with the project because we thought it would be good to donate produce to local kitchens.”
The rangers would transport the harvested silverbeet to the front gates of the park where members of the Sikh community would collect the vegetables.
Sikh volunteers had been organising food drives for people struggling during the pandemic.
Jasvinder Sidhu was contacted by Parks Victoria who wondered if the silverbeets could be used in their meals.
“I went home and tried to recreate a recipe called saag, it’s a very popular indian dish usually made with spinach,” Mr Sidhu said.
“I gave it to James and his team and they really liked it, we said we can use that silverbeet.”
The vegetable was delivered to various community kitchens to support minority communities, and even driven up to Shepparton when covid cases were rampant.
The Sikh volunteers were able to use the silverbeet harvested by Ms Goh and transported by Parks Victoria to cook more than 500 meals for the community.
Their collaborative efforts earned them the Volunteering Partnerships Award, given to them by Volunteering Victoria and the state government.
Twenty-four people and 26 organisations were finalists across seven award categories, but Mr Sidhu said his intuition told him they would win.
“Usually the Sikh culture is we give and we don’t expect things in return but an award is a testimonial that our work has a lot of impact, everyone is very happy and proud.”
Ms Goh said they will continue to harvest the silverbeet garden every winter.
“We do this thing not only to benefit others, it’s beneficial for us to our mental and physical health. So you mustn’t think you’re doing it for somebody, we’re doing it for our own good as well,” she said.
