Personally, Gundy’s seen me through every life stage from childhood to parenthood on the proverbial rollercoaster of triumph, tears, tragedy, tantrums and total hilarity.

Over 20 years, my life path has led me to Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and across the planet but this little metropolis remains my due north.

What I love most about Goondiwindi, and what always lures me home, is “Community”.

We’ve held the Friendliest Town Award for good reason and our service clubs, non-for-profit organisations, businesses and events have been outstanding in supporting every community group from young to old, frail to fighting fit and every other cause in between.

We are truly blessed to have such a dynamic sense of community.

That’s why when local hero Kevin Suhr had a word in my ear about many older members of our community turning off their fridges, due to raising electricity bills, and eating tinned food, as they cannot afford Meals-on- Wheels, I knew our town had a new cause.

Brainstorming led to the concept of a community garden.

During my four years in Brisbane I’ve been a regular visitor, with Northey St City Farm and their markets being a favourite, and seen the wonderful benefits of this concept.

The benefits for Gundy are limitless.

One major benefit is that a sizeable portion of fruit and vegetable produced can be donated to Meals-on-Wheels so all our community members requiring assistance have access to fresh, healthy food.

But this is the tip of the iceberg with benefits for our community including:

r Providing our Youth access to interesting, diverse and enterprising activities that will “give them something to do”.

r Tourism Incentive to encourage tourists and their dollars into the town to stimulate our widely discussed “quiet time”.