Names were being tossed around for the Inverell Best Food Garden’s new scarecrow yesterday, as around 10 McLean residents joined the KCL Day Care group for a morning tea in the community garden.
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Pumpkin Face and Tom Dooley were close finalists for the straw-stuffed gardener, decked out in overalls, and stylish black gumboots, but the group eventually settled on Costa, after the bearded garden guru who visited the community garden on April 17.
Best Employment’s Danny Middleton said the morning was about bringing the two age groups together to share in the garden’s activities.
KCL kids performed a number of sing-alongs to rapt audiences, before the task of stuffing and mounting the garden’s new scarecrow got underway.
“All you have to do is look at the smiles on their faces. It is a real joy to bring the two age groups together,” McLean’s retirement services manager Robyn Dixon said.
“The Best Food Garden is about collaboration between all the services; the disability services, the kids, us, it is a really nice thing to do in a community when you get to bring everyone together.”
Robyn said there has been extensive research recently that links natural settings to improving attention spans for dementia sufferers. She said the group of residents have been excited to spend the morning with the local youngsters.
“It was interesting, one of the people here who was actually diagnosed with dementia, I was walking over here with her and she said ‘this is where we were a few weeks ago,’—she actually remembered,” Robyn said.
“Short term memory is what is hit by dementia, not long term, and she actually remembered the surroundings.”