As he stood in an empty paddock, Wayne McKenzie wondered if Dave Taylor Park could be of great benefit to the Pioneer area.
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A resident of Pioneer all his life, he said how important it was that today’s generation of kids grew up so as to not reinforce the negative attitudes held towards Pioneer.
“Today's kids are the next criminals, car thieves, junkies and drug dealers, so we need to get in there now and do something about it,” he said.
“Kids need food every day, and for some of them here, that’s just not a reality.
“Why not build a community vegetable garden in this big paddock we have here?”
He said he had no doubt that people would band together to manage the garden.
“We'd need a fence to go around it and people to police it, but we could grow our own vegetables, have our own chooks and nobody will starve,” he said.
“If they build a community garden for vegetables I can guarantee you the whole community will be involved.”
He said the kids would benefit the most from the garden. “If you don't get breakfast in the morning, you can't concentrate at school,” he said.
“If we can get the kids to grow a vegetable themselves, then they can go home and eat it, it will give them a sense of pride, and on top of it all, it's healthy,” he said.
“We just need the council or the government to help us out with it.”
Chief executive officer at Linking Communities Network Yvonne Wilson said something needed to be done to improve the quality of life in Pioneer.
“We have the Alma Bamblett centre down there, but we're struggling to get volunteers to keep the centre open,” she said.
“They need to plant some trees and gardens, and I'm sure people would be happy to look after those gardens if they were planted.
“It should be a group effort that involves the local community, council, and any other person that wanted to assist.”
Detective Acting Inspector Cherie Knox from Griffith Local Area Command said they would be happy to help.
“Our Fitness Beyond Barriers program would certainly be interested in taking part in some kind of community gardens program,” Acting Inspector Knox said.