Interviewer: As the weather turns cold the sounds of summer seem a long way off. When I visited Spiral Garden at Bloorview Kids Rehab last summer heritage tomatoes were ripening on the vine.
Art Therapy Staff Member: These are a special type of tomato called Principe Bourghese.
Interviewer: Cultivated mushrooms were sprouting on logs
Art Therapy Staff Member: they are the polka dot logs
Interviewer: and the kids were elbow deep in saucy concoctions of their own design
You’re making ice cream, yes…
Child Participants: My name is Michelle and you’re Ava, well we made this … called paradise and it has pears, we have rice milk, coconut milk, organic cane sugar, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice.
Interviewer: The spiral garden is an amazing space behind the hospital that backs on to a beautiful ravine. Here kids of all ages and abilities come together to be inspired by nature and one another.
Sara Dobbs: Spiral Garden is eight weeks, four two week sessions.
Interviewer: Here kids of all ages and abilities come together to be inspirited by nature and one another. Sara Dobbs is the artistic coordination for Bloorview Centre for the Arts which oversees the Spiral Garden Program.
Sara Dobbs: It’s really about nature and art and play and combing those three things.
Interviewer: It’s also about changing attitudes around notions of disability giving kids who don’t have physical challenges the opportunity to spend time with kids who do.
Sara Dobbs: We are challenging the children, particularly developing children, to really embrace the children with disabilities so that they are seeing the children without disabilities and where they see past that to what their ability is. So that is what’s interesting, is the kids that can see the child’s ability, like there is one boy there in a wheelchair who another child quite an advanced little girl said “can he speak?” and the boy said yes and the facilitator said yes louder and then she said “like for real? does he know math?” and the facilitator said well ask him a question so she did you know 1 + 1 and this boy answered 2 and so now she looks at him in a completely way because she knows he has a mind too, his body is not working but his mind is working.
Interviewer: Evelyn who is busy painting a wooden chair with spirals and polka dots agrees.
Child Participant: In the beginning where I didn’t come to the camp yet like and saw people that are a bit different I really didn’t know what to think but now since I am surround by them I get to learn their stories and see how they are sort of just like us and we have to pay more attention to them and like just treat them how we want to be treated.”
Coming around in a wheelchair is very accessible to just three children?
Interviewer: Making it easy for kids to get up close and personal with all that is in the garden is a priority for Jane Hillary a gardener here at Bloorview.
Jane Hillary (Gardener at the centre) We have extended the shovels which are very light, we always think light and handles which they can grip easily because there may be absolutely no strength in their hands. We really want them to feel like they are gardeners as well as all of us. The cutting board, use that white one there.”
Interviewer: Summer’s bounty of wild leeks, fresh garlic and sorrel makes a delicious meals when the cold weather kicks in and that is when the kids head inside to channel their inner chefs and artists at art kitchen.
Art Kitchen Program Facilitator: Ten weeks and then we run three times a year so we often have children who come back and so we can keep building on their skills. At art kitchen the focus is on making things by hand.
Child Participant: Well I’m turning seeds into flour.
Interviewer: Shannon Crossman runs the art kitchen program which as the name suggests combines time for cooking with time for working on art projects.
Oh yes we try to have a sustainable approach also based on what the perma-culture, methodologies, practices and philosophy where we want to have a permanent agriculture, use may be perennial crops and grains and we do want to take things from the very start to the finish you know so I really think that the local, local, local you know, can we source wild foods, can we you know growth thyme and basil and then gather it and dry it and then use it now in the winter you know so that the kids just have a real connection to the place.
Ben I’m sorry I gave you really not the easiest clay to roll, bah.
Interviewer: Ben loves working with clay. His mom Louise Kinross also enrolled her daughter Lucy and Lucy’s friend Christie in the program.
Louise Kinross: The fact that the program is integrated so that there are kids with and without disabilities and I have a child with a disability and also a kids without disabilities and the fact that they can all come to one program and everyone can feel comfortable and it’s just a great environment.
My daughter and her friend just love the cooking aspect of it and they just love the idea of making something from scratch.
Interviewer: On today’s menu, ravioli filled with steamed squash, homemade tomato sauce and onion galettes
Child Participant: I’m Lucy, well me and Christie we’ve made the pasta before and I really like doing that with the pasta maker so yeah I like that.
Interviewer: From garden to table, it is time to get down to some serious eating but first…
Altogether group toast: We would like send you handmade pasta, to the handmade pasta”
Cheering.
Interviewer: For CBC Radio, I’m Tina Pitaway in Toronto.