Our Community Outreach

The Opportunity Garden

This project was inspired by "The Opportunity School" from Orangeville's history, being the first school in the area for those with disabilities.

Mission

The motto of the Orangeville & District Horticultural Society is "Gardens are for Sharing." The Opportunity Garden is a teaching tool and community support. We teach neurodiverse adults how to grow pea shoots from seeds, harvest, package and donate the proceeds.

Vision

In 2022, there was an idea - create an outreach project that was different in scope. This became ""The Opportunity Garden" in 2023. We partnered with Branching Out Support Services (BOSS), which is a neurodiverse adult facility. In the early days, we had Am Braigh Farms helping with the teaching process. However, when the owner retired, we started with working with Headwaters Food and Farming Alliance.

We grow pea shoots from seeds in the window at BOSS every Wednesday from March-June and then September-November. The pea seeds take about a week to become shoots. They are harvested, weighed, packaged and labeled by the participants at BOSS. Then they are delivered on Wednesday afternoons to the Orangeville Foodbank. To date, we have donated over 300lbs of fresh, highly nutritious pea shoots to the community.