Chelmsford Community Food Forest in Côté Park got a facelift Oct. 9 thanks to the help of Steelworkers members from the region.
The Steelworkers members from Sudbury, Timmins and the Sault gave the food forest an overhaul as part of their participation in the United Way’s Day of Caring, which brings together volunteers and local agencies to help tackle community projects.
The roughly 25 Steelworkers members were in Sudbury for their Northeastern Ontario Area Council quarterly meeting.
“Instead of just having meetings, why not be community partners and care for the communities we live in?” said Eric Delparte, president of the Steelworkers Northeastern Ontario Area Council.
He said the group has also previously worked on a community garden in Timmins as part of the Day of Caring initiative.
Working with the non-profit group Sudbury Shared Harvest, the volunteers installed a walking path, removed weeds, and added landscaping stones and bat boxes. Fisher Wavy made a generous donation of materials and a USW volunteer built the bat boxes.
Carrie Regenstreif, Sudbury Shared Harvest’s community engagement co-ordinator, said the food forest was planted in 2020, but hasn’t produced much fruit yet, partly due to neglect.
Regenstreif said she’s appreciative of the work put in by the Steelworkers, adding that she was actually looking into getting a grant for a contractor to do the job.
“Having this big of a group, it's such a treat,” she said. Usually, I'm in there. Today I have hardly done any work myself because it's not necessary. Everybody came ready to work.”
Among the trees and shrubs planted in 2020 were apple, cherry, currant, haskap, raspberry and gooseberry.
She hopes that Chelmsford-area residents will now take more interest in the food forest now that the plants are more obvious. While one person has stepped forward, others are needed.
“It's really making it much more obvious that we're doing something there, and we're hoping that will help get more people involved next year in the food forest,” she said.
“We do need people locally here in Chelmsford to take on the maintenance of have the fruit trees and just keeping those weeds at bay, which will be easier now that there's a big pathway through.”
If you’re interested in getting involved, contact Regenstreif at [email protected].
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor.