Growing in the garden of life

Getting dirty could be a good way to keep your nose clean according to 17-year-old Wollongong man Luke Van Duin.

Mr Van Duin is currently part of ‘MyPlace’, a Wollongong-based housing program for young men at risk of becoming homeless, and is keen to turn some of the MyPlace backyard into a thriving garden.

He said the idea is to prevent boredom in himself and other residents and keep them out of trouble by giving them a project to work on.

Mr Van Duin and the team at MyPlace have been successful in gaining a $4000 grant from the Foundation for Young Australians to buy tools and plants for the garden.

Mr Van Duin is one of four young men in the MyPlace house at the moment.

He said the garden will be something he and others can look at with pride once it’s up and running.

“It’ll be something that you have done and something that you can be proud of,” Mr Van Duin told the Wollongong and Northern Leader.

MyPlace Community Care Coordinator Linda Dean said the seed for the idea was planted when a previous resident who had just been released from Juvenile Justice set to work on part of the garden.

The idea, Ms Dean said, is that as the residents grow so does the garden they have created, so that when they are invited back to visit in the months after leaving the house they can see what they helped create.

She said hopefully in time the vegetable patch planned for the garden will yield enough produce to sell at the Lighthouse Church’s Sunday morning service in Wollongong.

Lighthouse Church runs the charity.

Ms Dean said the main reason young men end up in MyPlace is because of relationship breakdown within the family.

“Family relationship breakdown is the big thing with the youth in this day and age,” she said.