February Society General Meeting + Speaker: Paulette Macdonald

Join us for our next public meeting at the Parkside Centre on Durham Street in Sudbury. Doors open at 1:15 pm for socializing and light refreshments. Please bring your own coffee mug or travel mug.

The meeting at 2 pm will feature guest speaker Paulette Macdonald with her presentation entitled “A Little Patch of Happiness: Soil-searching in the urban garden”.

Paulette Macdonald is the team lead at Westmount 4-H Club Community Garden in New Sudbury. The garden was founded 10 years ago with the intention of facilitating all aspects of gardening for the Sudbury 4-H Club participants and their families where youth learn practical skills that they can apply right away in their lives. Since then, the team has been awarded for creativity and delivery of experiential learning programs and leadership.

Previously, the Sudbury 4-H Club was founded in 2002 in response to a growing need for youth to engage in practical skills for better living. Having been a 4-H member herself in the Ottawa Valley, Paulette knew that the philosophy of “Learn to Do by Doing” (the 4-H motto) was a successful way to share knowledge. Thus, the Club was born and 4-H Ontario could now boast its first-ever urban 4-H Club! Ever since her childhood on the family farm, Paulette encourages personal connection to nature and gardening as a means of soil-searching and experiencing transformation in the garden.

Today, the community garden is an ongoing project with workshops and a program called Youth-for-Youth Shared Harvest. For instance, the program offers time in the garden for youth and families to enjoy harvesting their own fresh produce in a fun and wholesome environment.

Paulette continues her own soil-searching having completed a year-long course in practical herbalism with a wholistic approach to tending both cultivated and wild plants, and making potent herbal medicines and nourishing foods. Also, during the height of the pandemic, Paulette graduated with a B. A. Concentration in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with minor courses in Indigenous studies. Currently, Paulette is a board member of the Westmount Neighbourhood Association and the Sudbury District 4-H Association. She is an avid gardener, hiker and a beginner harpist.