The Barrie Rotary Club is hoping to get to work as early as this summer on a new garden commemorating the impact the COVID-19 has had on the lives of residents.
The garden, which still requires approval from city council, would be located east of the Dorian Parker Centre in Sunnidale Park. The plan will be referred to the city clerk's office with all other pandemic-related memories efforts for review.
Ian Malcolm, chair of the club’s environmental committee, initially presented the idea to the city’s building committee on April 13. He said the club has partnered with local landscape architect Jim Hosick on the design.
“He’s designed seven planting areas and an open area, which are symbolic and interpret human behaviour and reactions of the last year or so,” Malcolm said. “The gardens are designed for quiet contemplation and stimulation of the senses and for meeting friends.”
The intent of the COVID Heroes Garden, noted Hosick in a letter presented to council, is to provide a “quiet but active outdoor commemoration and memorial of our shared trials through the COVID pandemic." The space is also envisioned to be a “contemplative area, with places for celebration as well as illustrative representation of the struggles that victims endured and overcome."
The design includes seven component gardens, each of which would depict an element of the collective experience of visitors as COVID victims, and culminating to a central feature at the south, celebrating neighbourhood heroes, front-line workers, first-responders and community leaders.
The garden, explained Malcolm, would consist of a colour garden, a fern wave garden, a conifer grove, a walnut grove, a wild garden, and two rock feature areas.
“The existing birch trees and evergreens would be incorporated into the design,” he said, adding the garden would cover approximately one and a half acres of the city park.
The cost of the proposal is $80,000 excluding irrigation, and the Rotary Club would provide $22,000, along with the manual labour for plantings, mulching, fertilizing, fundraising and possible donations of plant material.
They have also applied to the Canadian Healthy Communities Initiative for the remaining money ($79,000) and are expecting an answer in next month, noted Malcolm.
Finding a way to respectfully and honestly commemorate the struggles many have faced over the course of the pandemic is at the top of mind when creating the plans.
“To put names on a placard who we’ve lost is not going to be a good idea. Our intent is more to have something to talk about these years,” he said. “It's a place for those who maybe lost somebody to just sit and be closer to those they lost.”
Barrie council had decided earlier this month that all requests or recommendations for memorials be referred to the city clerk to maintain a list until the COVID-19 pandemic is declared finished. With that in mind, Mayor Jeff Lehman was hopeful they could treat this request differently, given how detailed the plans are and that fundraising is already underway.
“It’s certainly an area of Sunnidale Park that I think this is perfectly appropriate for and happen to think it’s a very appropriate place to do it in the city," he said. "Those who visit will know it’s almost a scar, the old playground… which either needs to be reclaimed or turned in to something.
"I think it’s a location of some significance which would benefit a commemorative garden,” the mayor added. “I think the Rotary Club is the perfect partner to deliver this.”
