100% of everything that is grown in The Giving Garden is donated to those in need

Our Giving Garden is run by a wonderful group of volunteers, dedicated to growing and tending a healthy harvest.

Where we donate

Past and present donations from our garden have gone organizations such as: Blue Door Shelter, Sharon Food Pantry, Holland Landing Community Centre, Mount Albert Food Pantry, Keswick Community Fridge.

We can’t thank you enough!

We want to thank all of our employees, volunteers and sponsors from the bottom of our hearts for all the hard work you do.

Our Impact

The Giving Garden benefits the community of East Gwillimbury because of its unique mandate to support residents who are in need of fresh food. There are allotment gardens and community gardens in York Region, but few, if any, that support residents the way The Giving Garden does here in EG.

The residents who rely on the food banks or support services are extremely grateful when they are able to include fresh local produce with the items they pick up. Feedback from clients as reported from the food banks was extremely positive over the past couple of years. Volunteers who support the garden also feel a tremendous sense of goodwill, knowing they are helping fill a need in our area.

The garden aims to be an ongoing project to support those residents of East Gwillimbury who have food insecurity. We promote healthy eating by providing fresh produce at our food banks.

The cost to set up and improve the running of the process is what we are finding the most challenging. Each year, we learn and implement better ways to manage the garden, and we foresee a time in the near future where running costs will be significantly reduced once the main systems are in place for successful growing and harvesting vegetables.

Our Operations

In the past 3 years, we had a schedule that involved volunteers watering and picking each Tuesday and delivering seasonal vegetables on Wednesday morning to the Sharon Food Pantry located at St. James Anglican Church, 18804 Leslie St., Sharon ON.

In the past on Thursday or Friday, any additional ripe vegetables were picked and delivered to the Blue Door Shelter, Porter Place located at 18838 HWY 11, East Gwillimbury. We plan to continue to do this or find an additional location that would benefit from fresh produce at the end of the week.

The Keswick Community Fridge, located at 90 Wexford Dr., was added in 2024, which we are happy to continue to support.

During the last week of the month, the entire amount of vegetables were picked and donated to the Holland Landing Food Bank, located at 19513 Yonge St., Holland Landing.

This schedule of picking and dropping off vegetables will continue this summer by volunteers, 5 of whom are new to the garden this summer. The organization is run solely by volunteers in East Gwillimbury. We host volunteer days in early spring to get the garden ready for planting and for the planting itself. Students from East Gwillimbury also volunteer and use the volunteer hours as part of their high school graduation requirement.

Further Connections to East Gwillimbury

In addition, The Seed Library at the East Gwillimbury Library, Holland Landing branch, is involved again this year. Volunteers planted some of the seeds from the Seed Library in a couple of the garden beds. This will highlight and promote the availability of various seeds at the library for any resident of East Gwillimbury with a library card to access and plant. Produce grown from these seeds will be included in our regular vegetable donations.