With blue skies and sunny days, everyone wants to be outside, including KANDU clients! Now clients can enjoy the outdoors while planting the KANDU garden in new raised bed garden boxes, generously donated by RECAP. A long-time partner of KANDU production, RECAP is a restorative justice program aimed to rehabilitate inmates through multiple support avenues, including tending a community garden where most of the harvested produce is donated to local non-profits. After over-hearing the need for raised beds for the KANDU garden, Best Events employee Victoria Brown reached out to RECAP to see if they could help. Within days, four raised beds were built and delivered to KANDU, with extra soil included.

Constructed from lumber with a plastic lining and drainage holes, these beds are waist-high in height, allowing easier accessibility for individuals who use a wheelchair or have mobility barriers. Victor McDonald, who works with the clients that tend the garden, explains, “The wonderful donation of garden beds from RECAP will allow the clients to get further involved in the care of the plants during their life cycle, between the seedling stage and the final product, without the risk of falling from bending over.”

Clients are painting the garden boxes and will be stenciling on designs for extra flair before they are installed at Adel St. for the summer. Weeks ago, ISP and Adult Day Care clients started seeds, which will be transplanted into the garden as soon as the boxes are fully prepped. In addition to growing lettuce, cabbage and broccoli in the raised beds, clients will plant watermelon, corn, cantaloupe and squash in an in-ground plot, flowers and strawberries in large flowerpots, and rows of sunflowers along the street-side of the garden.

The last step in preparing the garden was deciding on a name. ISP clients chose “Rays Above,” with the donation from RECAP in mind. According to Victor, “The name came from a play on words. The word “Rays” represents the “raised” beds donated by RECAP and the sun’s rays that shine down from above to make everyone grow.”