Disabled gain employment and life skills in The Paddock

CHRIS Evans has helped grow many types of gardens but his greatest pleasure is watching his special workers’ lives improve.

Chris Evans says working with people less fortunate than himself has been a gift. Picture: Andy Rogers

AS manager of The Paddock — a seven acre farm in Geelong run by community services organisation Encompass — Chris Evans has seen a lot of things flourish over the years.

“We’ve grown all sorts of gardens with our clients,” says Chris, who fulfils Encompass’s charter of helping train and empower disabled and disadvantaged people.

“We’ve planted about two acres of vegie gardens and now we’ve got an apple orchard too.” But the growth Chris loves most occurs within the clients. “Seeing lives improve — you just can’t beat it,” he says.

The Paddock uses horticultural therapy to improve and enrich lives.

“We have physically disabled guys, mentally disabled guys and guys who are long-term unemployed and struggling and the aim is to give them life skills,” says CommBank’s Australian of the Day.

“Be it just turning up somewhere on time to completing some tasks; there’s a cooking program and that’s where the connection with starting to grow the vegies came in.”

As the Paddock has thrived over the past eight years, they’ve come to the attention of local businesses, including the Flying Brick Cider House, and started supplying produce to local market farms and restaurants.

This year Flying Brick and Encompass joined forces to plant 600 apple trees at The Paddock with the aim of producing a local cider — hopefully in 2017 — that will feature the welfare agency’s brand.

“The guys — and our clients are mostly guys — are learning to properly look after and prune the orchard,” says Chris, 43. “How to irrigate and manage the orchard for a commercial purpose so that’s really stepping up and it’s something they’re proud to be involved in.”

Chris — who used to lay floors for a living before joining Encompass 13 years ago — says working with people less fortunate than himself has been a gift.

“We get to know the person,” he says. “They’re not simply ‘disabled’ — they’re just blokes and I like getting to know them and seeing them come along in life. I don’t think I could see myself doing anything else.”

CommBank has partnered with News Corp Australia to champion the Australian of the Day initiative which celebrates people in our neighbourhoods and communities who really make a difference to how we live and who we are. You can read all their stories at australianoftheday.com.au, where you can also nominate someone you know.