A new piece of artwork in the community garden in Altona is honouring a volunteer who was a key proponent and driver of the project.
The Altona Community Action Network had artist Ken Loewen create the recently unveiled sculpture to honour Jack Heppner, who had the vision to create the community garden.
“He took on the role as the manager of the garden, and he really created it from the ground up,” said ACAN’s Joanne Wiebe. “He had a vision of it being a place for the community and for newcomers and for collaboration, and so he worked tirelessly to fundraise and to build it.”
“And so the idea came about to commission a local artist who we knew from the community, Ken Loewen. He does stuff that’s kind of agricultural, so it was all kind of symbolic, related to our community, and connected to gardening,” she noted of the sculpture, which features elements of gardening tools and plants. “We thought that was kind of a nice way to honour [Heppner] with this sculpture.”
“I was hoping it would serve the purpose, and it seems to have been successful,” observed Loewen, who added it was a meaningful project for him. “It was nice to be creating something for a community space that people are going to enjoy. It’s a very thriving, important project in our town. So this is just something to honour the guy who started it.”
Heppner is humbled by the recognition.
“It was seven years of work, but when I compare that to many other people in the community who dedicate decades of service to the public, to the community, it seems kind of unfair that I would get a public recognition like this, but I’m thankful and grateful for the recognition,” he said.
“This wasn’t the reward I was looking for,” Heppner added. “The reward for me was the actual experience of working at the community garden, seeing a project come to fruition, and especially seeing the garden grow and become a multicultural place. We had half of the gardens, more or less, were international gardeners from around the world.
“When I retired a year and a half ago, we had 150 families, and half of them were from outside of Altona, from around the world, so that was a big, very rich experience, getting to know so many people and cultures and religions.”
Heppner has always enjoyed turning big dreams into reality.
“I’m a project kind of a person,” he said. “I’m a dreamer. I like to dream stuff and then build stuff. So to see it go from start to finish and then be recognized by the community, supported by the community, that’s all very fulfilling.
“It is an identifiable place where people from all kinds of backgrounds come together, so it is a community,” Heppner noted. “It is a community gathering place, and so many of the newcomers have trouble integrating into the community. How do you connect with them, right? But if you garden next to them, you start talking and sharing vegetables and ideas, and so they start feeling more at home. So that’s part of the mystique of the garden.
“It’s a welcoming place, a friendly place, and that’s one of the reasons we set it up the way we did,” he said. “You rent your plot and then bring your seeds and plants, but other than that, all the tools, all the compost, all the water, all of that comes with the garden fee, so you don’t even have to own a home to start gardening.”
