When Amber Potter talks about the Birds, Bees and Butterflies garden initiative at Bloom Skills Centre, her enthusiasm is contagious. What began as a personal journey to support her son Bailey, who is nonverbal and living with autism, has blossomed into a community program that transforms lives while growing food.
The grant from the Community Foundation this spring of $14,500 from the Helping Hands for Those Disabilities Fund and the Opportunities Kingston Fund allowed Bloom to expand its garden and food skills workshops beyond its students to include the broader community. "We wanted to have workshops available where our students could actually integrate with other gardeners, with other community members," Potter explains. The initiative addresses two critical intersecting challenges: food insecurity affecting both people with exceptionalities and members of the community, many living on fixed incomes like ODSP.
But the real magic happens when you dig deeper into what gardening teaches. Potter describes it as "sneak attack teaching," where students learn transferable job skills without realizing it. As they tend garden beds, they're reading and prioritizing task lists, working cooperatively as a team, and developing social communication skills. When they help manage the Community Pantry by shelving produce, rotating stock, and tracking expiration dates, they're practicing the exact competencies needed for retail and food service employment. Several Bloom graduates have gone on to work at independent farms, Costco, and CVS services.
The workshops tackle another community need, too. "There's a big disconnect from how our food is grown to how it gets to our plates," Potter notes. The program teaches food preservation and preparation, helping people understand what to do with kale or beets. Whether it's gardening or cooking, participants leave with practical knowledge and something equally important: confidence and a sense of pride.
What makes this program distinctive is its philosophy of inclusion. Rather than segregating students into classes only for people with exceptionalities, Bloom intentionally creates mixed workshops where community members work alongside young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. "As much as it is good for our students to integrate with their community," Potter says, "it's good for the community to integrate with people with exceptionalities and get to learn and see how clever people are."
Since launching, the program has delivered multiple garden and food workshops at Lakeside Community Garden, with plans to continue through October. Working in soil, breathing fresh air, hearing only birdsong; it's therapeutic. But it's also purposeful. As Potter observes, watching Bloom students garden reveals the truth: "You'll never meet a happier group to weed a garden bed."
For the Community Foundation, that's what growing knowledge looks like.
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