VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Could you use a hand taming your yard?
Here’s a way to get a healthy garden and help someone on the road to recovery from mental illness — hire a team from Landscaping With Heart.
“It’s a social enterprise and it employs people with mental illness in the landscaping field,” explains Darrell Burnham with Coast Mental Health. “We founded it in 2006 and we work with about 20 or so contracts around the Lower Mainland, cutting grass, maintaining gardens, pruning, power raking, aeration and whatever our customers want.”
A team of crews work in the community, trained by Coast Mental Health to work in the landscaping business, funded through fees for service. Burnham says it’s about healthy gardens and healthy people.
“Unemployment for people with mental illness is about 80 per cent so anytime you get people back in the workforce it’s a huge achievement. People are often labelled by what they do, so if you are doing nothing or you look at yourself as a patient, it often adds another level of stigma or misunderstanding. For these people, they are landscapers and they can say that’s what they do for a living. That is very helpful.”
It also helps fight another common problem for people recovering from mental illness — poverty.
“Anytime we can get a few extra dollars in people’s pockets so they can have more independence, afford better housing, get the food they need, just enjoy life better, the more they are able to deal with the challenges of dealing with a mental illness,” believes Burnham.
“It’s hard work, it’s valid work, and all these things are very, very important,” he adds.
Landscaping With Heart’s team leaders have been involved in the industry for a years and continually train new people to work in lawn and garden maintenance. A number have gone on to start their own, successful businesses.
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