Te Rito – a garden with purpose
Nestled in the hills behind Kenepuru Hospital in Porirua, Te Rito Gardens gives people a sense of purpose and belonging. With the support of a group of trustees, Steve Wilson founded Te Rito as a social service enterprise in 2009 to create something meaningful for his son to do with his days.
Te Rito has since grown into a thriving community hub which has so far supported more than 320 people – many with intellectual disabilities – to gain practical and life skills. On any given day, a team of around 20 volunteers show up to work with Steve and nursery staff Bj Guy, Sol Maclean and Claire Leslie. The team is also supported by Volunteer Support Manager, Yolande Smythe, who along with Bj, was brought on in 2022 to help keep things running smoothly.
Te Rito, which sits on land loaned by local Iwi, Ngāti Toa, grows and sells native plants to a range of regular customers, including local councils for parks and gardens across Wellington, Porirua and Kāpiti. The nursery also fosters a garden-to-table approach, carefully cultivating organic potatoes, kūmara and salad greens. In late autumn, it’s time for the annual kūmara harvest. The team pulls a bumper crop from the ground. It’s a significant achievement, says Steve, given how difficult kūmara can be to grow in cooler climates.
Since 2017, the IHC Foundation, has provided a boost of more than $100,000 to Te Rito for various projects. Most recently, the funding has enabled Te Rito to install solar panels and a battery, so that the nursery can run off-grid during the summer months and to provide power for a water pump to support the wetland plants. IHC Foundation funding has also made it possible for Te Rito to offer formal classroom sessions, with units covering topics such as workplace safety, leadership, and self-management. Last year, four volunteers with intellectual disabilities completed their Level 2 Certificate in Primary Industry Skills.
Sometimes the nursery closes for a day or two so the whole group can work on an offsite project. They recently returned to a site where they had planted seedlings a few years earlier. Yolande describes the group walking among the now-tall trees and realising that they were the same seedlings they had planted. “Someone exclaimed, ‘Oh, we planted these!’ Everyone was so excited about what they had achieved,” says Yolande.
On the last Friday of each month, the nursery workers put down their tools for a shared barbeque lunch. Seated around a large macrocarpa table in the shed, everyone shares stories and kai, including the recently harvested kūmara and salad leaves that are almost all grown at Te Rito.
The IHC Foundation
The IHC Foundation provides funding to support initiatives that enable people with intellectual disabilities to live inclusive, fulfilling lives and actively participate in their communities.
Over the past eight years, the IHC Foundation has been proud to support Te Rito Gardens to establish a sustainable, inclusive programme which provides opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities to gain practical skills, achieve tertiary qualifications, build relationships and make a meaningful contribution to the local community.
