The Garden of Eden project is hosted by the Uniting Church on Chandos St, Eden, and has been running for 10 years.

Uniting Church pastor and Garden of Eden coordinator Pam Skelton said the project has become a hub for the community, with a community garden on the grounds of the church and a free lunch provided each Monday two of the most important fixtures. 

“The objective is to build community, especially for people who might be on the fringes or marginalised,” Ms Skelton said.

“Between 25 to 50 people come to the free lunch, from all walks of life, not just those in crisis.”

Ms Skelton said the project is “heavily reliant on volunteers” but was greatly assisted over the past six months by funding via the Work for the Dole program, which provided 15 clients working on site in the garden. 

“The funding also enabled us to engage two paid coordinators, which expanded the project from two to four days a week,” Ms Skelton said.

Garden coordinator Alex Dalton and kitchen coordinator Sarah Sturt worked hard to maintain the garden and run the free Monday lunches respectively, as well as maintain other community events such as a monthly pizza and movie night and produce market.

With the end of the  six month Work for the Dole contract, the Garden of Eden project must source other funding options and grants to keep these roles in place.

Mr Dalton said effective Monday, February 8, his employment will be cut back to one day per week, forcing him to “pare back” the size of the garden, which in turn will affect the free Monday lunches in terms of onsite eggs and vegetables provided. 

“We need more volunteers to keep the garden going, or for people to adopt a plot in the garden,” Mr Dalton said.

Ms Sturt, whose employment in the kitchen reduces to one and a half days, said she is saddened by the cut in work.

“Mondays are the highlight of my week,” Ms Sturt said. 

“The free lunch makes us come together like a big family.”

Ms Sturt is also anxious about the continuation of the food relief program provided by the Garden of Eden project each Friday, which helps approximately 30 Eden households.

“We make hampers out of the food we grow and donations, and drive them around Eden to struggling families,” Ms Sturt said.

Ms Skelton said the hunt is on for new avenues of funding.

“The difficulty for us is that the step-down in employment hours means it’s difficult for those two coordinators to maintain passion for the project,” Ms Skelton said.

She said it was unknown when the Work for the Dole initiative could be re-engaged to help the project.

“After the initial influx, the clients have moved on to other stages of their requirements, so there are now insufficient clients to do another group project,” Ms Skelton said.

“As project providers, we are not expecting more clients for months.”

Mission Providence is one of four job active providers in the Illawarra South Coast employment region who helped assign clients to the Garden of Eden Project, and was satisfied its part of the bargain had been honoured.

“These specific projects have finite lives, and after six months there has been a deliverable and that was the original agreement with the Uniting Church,” Mission Providence operations manager for the Illawarra South Coast region Tonya Hughes said.

This “deliverable” was principally the completion of new garden beds.

“But we absolutely expect that we will undertake other projects with the Garden of Eden project,” Ms Hughes said.

“But at the moment there is nothing concrete.”

For now, the future of the Garden of Eden seems to rest in the hands of the Eden community itself.

“We have strong community support and we will endeavour to continue our programs,” Ms Skelton concluded.

“But we might have to rely much more heavily on volunteers, and we need more.”