When a group of Halifax inner-city youth needed assistance to keep their budding business program alive, UBC Carpenters Local 83 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, stepped up and offered their time and expertise.
Hope Blooms is a North End Halifax community garden and salad dressing company. It is run by inner-city youth with help from mentors. They plant seeds, tend crops, and turn their produce into organic salad dressing, which is sold locally. Last year, they appeared on the TV show Dragons’ Den, asking for an investment to expand their business.
The idea received great accolades from investors on the show, who invested $40,000 towards construction of a new greenhouse. But contributions of supplies and labour for the facility made by UBC Local 83 and other unions in Halifax enabled that $40,000 to be invested in other aspects of the program and the community.
UBC members worked with the young entrepreneurs to design and construct a top-of-the-line greenhouse for the youth-run social enterprise, based in Murray Warrington Park, Halifax.
