HALIFAX -- Hope Blooms is an initiative in the North End of Halifax that engages youth through innovative agricultural and culinary programs.
Kolade Kolawale-Boboye was one of the founding youth in the program. He joined when he was eight years old.
“I’m not from here, I was born in Nigeria. I moved here when I was seven years old. One of my friends, I kind of befriended at school … she’s like, ‘Hey, you should come join the garden.’ I was like ‘I’m not really a gardener,’” recalls Kolawale-Boboye.
“She was like, ‘Come for the food’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll come for the food.’”
Kolawale-Boboye says he ended up making life-long friends with people who were like-minded and who became like a second family.
As a Hope Blooms alumni, Kolawale-Boboye is still involved with the project. The university student comes back every summer to show his support.
“Hope Blooms has helped me grow into the person I am today. So I felt it was necessary to come back and support and work and help with anything I can do,” says Kolawale-Boboye.
Youth aged five to 18 participate in the agricultural and culinary programs. At 20, Kolawale-Boboye says his role with the program has come full-circle, as he has become a mentor to the children who participate.
“It’s definitely nice to see them grow into the people they’ve become and grow into the people they want to be. These young, smart children grow into adults and that’s amazing to me,” says Kolawale-Boboye.
Hope Blooms' new facility opened just two weeks ago.
“When we first started off, like seven years ago, we were dreaming about all of this. We wanted to have a little home base and now we have this home base,” says Kolawale-Boboye.
“Our facility is connected to the greenhouse and the garden. We have everything we need all in one spot. It’s amazing.”
