Tuesday April 22, 2025 | LANGFORD, BC
by Island Social Trends
Today on Earth Day, City of Langford council hosted a celebration of the official opening of Porcher Park.
The morning event from 11 am to 12 noon featured remarks at the podium by Langford Mayor Scott Goodmanson as well as Ruth King PAC rep Kelli Beck and Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society (UFRIS) Executive Lead Mary Brooke.
Langford council has been proactive about developing community-based spaces in the city core. This one has a children’s playground, seating areas, wooded pathway and food-growing community garden.
Councillors who attended today were Kimberley Guiry, Colby Harder, Mark Morley, Lillian Szpak, and Mary Wagner.
The park at 822 Wren Place is in a densifying area of downtown Langford where many residents end up with nowhere to do food-gardening.
Good-size crowd:
About 80 people attended today’s event including Langford residents and community leaders, City parks and administration staff, and Langford Fire Chief Chris Aubrey. Media in attendance included CTV Vancouver Island,Black Press and Island Social Trends.
There was a ceremonial planting of three flowering trees in an area that will soon include picnic benches for people to casually enjoy the area and where garden-related workshops will be held.
Overview by Parks director:
Langford Director of Parks, Recreation and Facilities, Yari Nielsen, explained how the park area with trees had become landlocked but how the city purchased three old houses on adjacent lots to make a linear park.
“As the city grew it became clear that more parkland was needed especially in the downtown core. The need was identified and Council took proactive measures to secure this land and create this great park,” he said.
“The park is for people of all ages and interests. Children can enjoy the natural wood playground and accessible merry-go-round and families can have picnics in the shaded areas. and nature lovers can explore natural forest and pathways, and of course participate in our first community garden,” said Nielsen who has been with the city for several years.
He pointed out that the three new trees ceremonially planted near the community garden today — pear, cherry and apple — are in alignment with the city’s Urban Forest Management Plan.
Remarks by speakers:
Nielsen introduced the speakers whose remarks are summarized here:
- Scott Goodmanson, Mayor of Langford: “This park had its beginnings in the 70s. It was invasively land-locked. You knew it was here and if you knew the right friends you could sneak through a yard and you had this wonderful secret little place to enjoy. But the vast majority of the public couldn’t get in here. Today we’ve got a new chapter in this story, one that reflects the commitment to environmental stewardship and community well-being. The addition of Porcher Park aligns with council’s strategic plan regarding climate change and environmental stewardship with initiatives like this community garden. The transformation of Porcher Park is a collaborative effort including by the Victoria Green Team and FireSmart BC to restore the park to a natural state by removing invasive species and planting native species. One of the most exciting additions to the park is the community garden — the first of its kind in Langford, operated by the Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society. This garden will empower residents to grow fresh produce for their households, fostering community spirit, and promoting healthy living. The initiative is a testament to our commitment to supporting urban households and enhancing community resilience. And to celebrate the opening of Porcher Park I want to express my gratitude to everyone who has contributed to this project, to the volunteers who worked tirelessly to restore the park and to the members of the Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society who will manage the community garden. Your efforts have made this vision a reality. Today we invite you to explore Porcher Park with your neighbours, enjoy the outdoors, and take part in our ceremonial tree planting. This park space is for everyone where you can celebrate nature and community. Let’s make the most of this beautiful new green space and continue to work together to build a vibrant, resilient, sustainable Langford. Enjoy the park like these great kids are doing here (kids were playing on the playground equipment).
- Kelli Beck, local resident on the Ruth King Elementary School Parent Advisory Committee (PAC): She is the mother of two school-age kids and she does fundraising for the school PAC.”If you put fun in the focus, the funds will follow,” she told the outdoor audience. She talked about the need for and the positive impact of having greenspace. Since the playground opened kids have been coming to Porcher Park after school. “There’s a reverence, calmness and energy when I’m here. It’s a reminder in our busy live when we get preoccupied with the rush… to stop and just be with nature. This need is so necessary,” Beck, noting the amenities in the park including playground, benches and garden. “It’s an environment where everybody is welcome…. this has to be the new standard… you’ve hit it out of the park!”
- Mary Brooke, B.Sc. (Foods & Nutrition), Executive Lead, Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society: Ms Brooke re-introduced herself to a community that already knows her as a journalist and publisher in Langford, saying that building community is a part of all that she does. She pointed out that the Porcher Park Community Garden is the first such food-growing garden in Langford and that it will serve a need to support households that have downsized into smaller urban spaces to keep up with their ability to keep up with the cost of living. But they are losing their at-home opportunities for growing food, she said. “I’ve had many emails saying people have lost their garden and food-growing spaces, and people see this garden as what it is — an opportunity to bring that back,” said Brooke. “Food growing is a lifeskill. It’s something everyone did years ago and we’re learning to do it again. Not everyone has a passion or the time for gardening and growing edible plants but as we’ve all seen — in recent years — the impacts of supply chain interruptions during the pandemic and the cost of food rising so fast that it impacts the rest of our household budgets. People are looking for ways to fill gaps in their grocery shopping bags. So food grown at home or in this community garden will be at optimum freshness when it arrives at your kitchen table. We’ll grow organically here without pesticides and ideally without chemical fertilizers. I think that appeals to a lot of gardeners and a lot of people who bring their food home. The vegetables and fruits grown here will be of peak nutritional value as well,” she said. “It starts here but we’re spreading through the community,” she said, indicating the need for food-growing capacity in residential, commercial and institutional spaces whether outdoors or indoors with agritech.
About UFRIS:
Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society (UFRIS) is a non-profit with a board of directors and now about 150 people who’ve expressed an interest in being part of the group’s work.
UFRIS launched in January 2024 with a goal to assist households with growing natural food in urban spaces.
“That’s our theme across everything… growing natural food in the urban places that we live,” said Brooke. “This is to help people with their household budgets and hopefully also the quality and availability of fresh produce.”
The group will advocate for the requirement of all urban development permits to require food-growing spaces. They will also dovetail into the emergency response sector over the years ahead, with the goal of building up supplies of frozen produce in storage units across municipalities.
The UFRIS email is info@urbanfoodesilience.ca . They have social media pages on LinkedIn, Facebook and X, and soon also Bluesky.
About the community garden:
The Porcher Park Community Garden will have about 30 plots for a range of household sizes and needs including small or single households, aging-in-place seniors, larger family households, those with Accessibility needs, and residents who self-identify as Indigenous. This aligns with the City’s community garden policy.
Some of the plots will be for growing food for community donation, with experienced gardeners welcome to manage those plots and teach others to garden as well.
Donors wanted:
Carpenters who can donate their time, and suppliers of soil and lumber are needed at this time.
Once the garden is up and running there will be a continual need for volunteers to grow, teach, weed things, water things, do pickups and deliveries, and much more.
Contact UFRIS at info@urbanfoodresilience.ca if you can fulfill any of those needs.
Next event:
The next event will be held on Saturday May 10 (from 11 am to 12 noon ) at the community garden for neighbours to connect and learn about the new community garden plots.
An effort will be made to include everyone who has expressed interest in growing food at the Porcher Park Community Garden.
There will be about 30 growing plots; beginner gardeners will be teamed up with experienced gardeners. Plots are for food grown to help the households of those gardeners but also for donation to the community through existing channels (such as the food bank).
===== RELATED:
- Langford to celebrate Porcher Park on Earth Day April 22 (April 21, 2025)
- Urban food resilience needed now more than ever (February 17, 2025)
- Langford develops their community garden policy (October 30, 2024)
- Urban food-growing as part of emergency preparedness (August 9, 2024)
- Public engagement about Porcher Park development in central Langford (April 8, 2024)
- Preparation for Langford’s first community garden gets rolling (April 1, 2024)
- Urban food resilience directions in Langford (June 9, 2023)
- Growing your own food in inflationary times (July 3, 2022)
- NEWS SECTIONS: LANGFORD | URBAN FOOD RESILIENCE