Bowen Island Community Foundation grants help local organizations bring ideas to life—strengthening connections, supporting creativity, and building a more vibrant and resilient community. Read about the Grafton Gardens Commons Polytunnel Project to see how your generosity makes a difference. More community impact highlights coming soon!
GRANTEE HIGHLIGHT:
Grafton Gardens Commons Polytunnel Project
Recipient: The Rotary Club of Bowen Island
Grant: $8,000
Two years ago, the Rotary Club of Bowen Island received a Community Impact Grant of $8,000 as part of the club’s fundraising drive to build an agricultural polytunnel at the Grafton Commons Gardens on Grafton Road.
Grafton Commons Gardens is a community garden with an additional ¾-acre demonstration garden for learning about building healthy soil, regenerative agriculture, and food-system resiliency. The Foundation’s grant contributed to the building of an agricultural polytunnel—a 40’ x 12’ polyethylene structure with a metal frame. It traps the sun’s heat and stays warm because it loses heat more slowly than it gains it. The sides can be rolled up for ventilation in warmer weather. With it, the volunteers at the Gardens can start seedlings as early as January to grow in the Gardens when the soil becomes warm enough, extending the growing season for crops like tomatoes, increasing food production for sale and donation to the community.
Unexpected benefits came with the polytunnel as well! The sides roll up to allow breezes and air circulation throughout. The ventilation makes it cool enough inside during the hot days of summer that plants don’t overheat as they can in traditional glass greenhouses.
The retracted sides also allow the gardeners to harden off seedlings in the spring without having to physically move them outside and back indoors again at night. Without being exposed to good air circulation, seedlings become weak and are not as hardy.
And best of all, workshops can be held inside throughout the winter, rain or shine, because it’s just that much warmer inside.
The new greenhouse at Grafton Commons Gardens reflects priorities identified in the Foundation’s Vital Conversations—from community building to environmental protection and intergenerational connection. The aim of the Gardens is to improve agricultural techniques to make food production healthier and more sustainable during this time of climate change. Entirely volunteer-run, this project brings together seniors, families, and children from both Bowen Island Community school and Island Pacific School to share the work and the learning—from raking manure in the polytunnel to participating in seed-sowing workshops.
We can achieve so much more working together. Many Bowen Islanders, both individually and as part of local organizations, worked together to make this project happen. The polytunnel’s realization was a real community effort that the Community Foundation is proud to have supported.
Photos courtesy Bowen Island Food Resilience Society.