The opportunity to participate in recreational
activities like gardening is fundamental to the personal growth and
development of all individuals. By nurturing and caring for plants and
flowers, people feel needed, develop skills, build self-confidence, learn
and grow.
Unfortunately, people with disabilities face many obstacles to
pursuing such opportunities. With this in mind, the Disabled Independent
Gardeners Association (DIGA) was established.
DIGA was created in 1987 to enable gardeners to share their passion for
plants and flowers with people with disabilities. Thanks to DIGA, almost
200 people in the community took to this therapeutic activity. However, as
happens with many small non-profit groups, situations in the lives of the
founders made it impossible to keep this popular endeavour active, and it
ceased operating in the mid 1990s.
Sam Sullivan, a quadriplegic as a result of a skiing accident at age 19,
decided he wanted to pursue gardening and made inquiries to DIGA. The
original founders agreed that DIGA should be revived. Sam, the founder of
several non-profit groups serving people with disabilities and recent
Member of the Order of Canada, took on the challenge. In 2003, he
recruited a dedicated board of directors, each one a gardener with a
disability, and elicited guidance and support from David Tarrant,
well-known author and television gardening personality.
DIGA is again flourishing, continuing to develop meaningful experiences in
gardening for people with disabilities. The prospect of pursuing their
passion for gardening is a possibility that many people with disabilities
never imagined possible because of the many physical barriers. DIGA works
to remove those barriers.
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