Our Journey at Grow Wanaka
From a humble seed of an idea in winter 2020, Grow Wānaka has blossomed into a thriving community garden and education hub. Born from local passion and built by generous hands, we’ve grown from a few beds into a vibrant, ever-evolving space that feeds, teaches, and connects our community - and we’re only just getting started.
Read more about our journey below.
We've Grown A Lot Since 2020
Scroll to see the changes to our land
Our Journey So Far
The Beginning
In the winter of 2020 a small team of passionate like-minded locals came together to create Grow Wānaka, on a very special piece of land gifted in partnership by The Outlet Camp. A charitable trust was set up to support the project and with a couple of generous community donations the garden was set in motion.
Growing
By February 2021 the first garden beds were being formed and since then the garden has continued to evolve into a productive and vibrant community growing hub. The garden now encompasses two greenhouses, a large berry patch, hot composting bays, continuous flow vermicomposting (worm) farms, and an organics drop off hub, and internal garden bed trellising and archways to enhance vertical growing space for greater productivity. All of this was made possible through community supported donations of time, effort, materials and funding.
Learning
Education has always been an integral part of the garden and wider project vision. The garden provides educational opportunities through weekly Saturday morning working bees, monthly workshops, and private garden tours with education session tailored for the visiting group. We also provide experiential learning opportunities for our tamariki with garden visits and hands-on activities to explore the food soil web within our garden ecosystem.
Evolving
Grow Wānaka is continuously evolving in all sorts of fun and fascinating ways. We are currently a partner in the Environmental Education Collaborative NaturEd Wānaka, we are an active participant in the Aotearoa Composting Network, and engage with both the Upper Clutha Food Security Network and the Southern Lakes Kai Collective. We are working with QLDC on community scale waste minimisation solutions, and we coordinate with the Wānaka Food Bank to provide weekly donations of fresh organic produce.
And we're still growing
Grow Wānaka is a living, breathing project - always evolving, always learning. While we've come a long way, there’s still so much more to grow. Whether it's building new garden beds, improving our compost systems, or deepening our community connections, the work is never finished - and that’s the beauty of it. We’d love for you to be part of the journey. Join our volunteer crew, get involved with our composting initiatives, and help shape a more sustainable future for our local community. Every hand makes a difference.
Meet Our Team
Chair
Overall Grow Wanaka
Chair
Emberly Wetherall
Garden Project
Coordinator
Colin Gregan
Founding Member and Project Support
Sam Moncur
Fundraising &
Project Advisor
Toni Foxton
Events Coordinator & Project Advisor
Sarah Graham
Administration &
Tech Guru
Caitie Zilm
Treasurer &
Project Advisor
Leigh Dumpleton
Education Coordinator & Garden Project Support
Megan Duncan
Digital Marketing Support & Website Designer
Our Supporters
Thank You To All Our Supporters:
Grow Wānaka is a community powered project that continues to thrive and evolve thanks to the many wonderful collaborations, donations, and collective garden mahi.
We are incredibly grateful for all the work and support that has brought this project to fruition and drives its evolution to this day.
A huge thanks and recognition to our original founders and former members, our working bee, education and outreach volunteer teams, our passionate community composters, our garden land owners & neighbours, our local and national collaborators, partners and networks, our donors, visitors, and everyone else who supports our kaupapa.
We are particularly grateful to our main sponsors and supporters:
Red Bridge Trust | Crosshill Garden – Ali Soper | Astebol Family | Roger Gardiner | Caroline Harker | Hoiho Media | Toni Foxton
Lyonel Tan Photography | Northlake | Paul Wright | Ross & Colleen Allan | Treeworks | Visual Distillery Design | Thiago Amaral - Wide Vision Data Services | Christine Schepp Design | Tree Tamers | Ruth Arkless Design | Hirepool Wānaka
Donate
Grow Wānaka is a Charitable Trust Organisation, which relies on donations of time, energy, materials and funding to achieve our community resilience and waste minimization goals and deliver on our community outreach and education programmes.
If you would like to support our work and project with a donation please get in touch with us.
We accept one-off monetary donations or join 'Friends of Grow Wānaka' as a regular donor. Donations over $5 are tax deductible.