LANDSCAPE ONTARIO
LANDSCAPE ONTARIO MEMBERS TO GIVE BACK TO
s r e k r o w e n i l t n o r f L
andscape Ontario will announce the 10 winners of the Garden Makeover Appreciation contest this fall. The initiative was designed by the association’s Covid-19 Task Force to celebrate the dedication of healthcare professionals and frontline workers in the fight against coronavirus. Through social media and support from garden communicators, Landscape Ontario promoted the program and sought nominations from across the province until August 31, 2020. A subcommittee of the task force will meet with chapter representatives in mid-September to
select winners of nine $5,000 garden makeovers (one in each chapter) and the grand prize makeover worth $25,000. Over 700 nominations have been received from every corner of the province. Here are three finalists who have gone above and beyond to help members of their community throughout the Covid-19 pandemic: Read the full story stories of these finalists online at landscapeontario.com/garden-makeover.
Lisa Fernandes
Dr. Anne Marie Zadjlik
Lisa Fernandes is a born caregiver, and her passion for helping people shines. Fernandes is a Personal Support Worker (PSW) at Caressant Care Mary Bucke in St. Thomas, Ont., — a place she calls her second home. To Fernandes, her colleagues and residents are family. “We are a big family in our very small home,” Fernandes says. “We are very protective of our family at Mary Bucke.” Fernandes recalls the day a younger coworker called her up and was in tears: “My parents are concerned about the spread of the virus and worried I could bring Covid home from work,” the coworker explained. The solution: “She moved in with me, and was with me for four months,” Fernandes explains. “It was an experience for me, because I’ve had two sons, so it was a learning curve, but she and I kept each other strong and safe. We made sure we did everything we possibly could to protect our family at Mary Bucke. We went grocery shopping once a month and got everything we would need. We washed everything down. We were so scared we would lose one of our residents, one of our family members.” Fernandes says Covid-19 flipped their world upside down, but it also brought her, her colleagues and residents closer together than ever before. Fernandes says her garden is work in progress, but that it brings her peace and tranquillity.
As a family physician and HIV-AIDS specialist, Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik has been battling pandemics her entire career. So when COVID-19 spread across Ontario, the Guelph-based doctor was ready. “When I was starting to treat HIV positive patients in the early nineties, we still didn’t have a treatment,” Zajdlik, explained in an interview with CBC Toronto. “So the patients I was caring for were all dying. It was before 1996 when the drug cocktails were available, and we knew how the disease was transmitted, but there was still a lot of terror around whether or not the disease would be transmitted to healthcare workers. So what I had to learn to do was not to be concerned about the disease being transmitted to me, but to move forward and help as much I could with people who were living with the virus. So it seems natural to me, with that training, to run towards the fire and into the COVID-19 pandemic because that’s what I was trained to do.” That doesn’t mean she wasn’t afraid. In fact, Zajdlik says she was terrified in March and April when case numbers surged. “I remember being at the Guelph Covid-19 clinic the day Premier Doug Ford announced the case projections from Public Health Ontario,” she said. “It was overwhelming. But I know my colleagues and I were very focused on doing our jobs and ensuring our community had the best information possible to keep themselves and their families safe.” An avid gardener who enjoys a spacious property in Rockwood, Ont., Zajdlik has also taken to social media to fight misinformation with scientific facts.
MEMBER SUPPORT
NEEDED
Once recipients are chosen for the 10 projects, Landscape Ontario’s dedicated members will mobilize to make these gardens a reality. Landscape Ontario is asking members to indicate support for one of their chapter garden makeovers. If you are able to contribute materials, products, labour or expertise to one of these worthy projects, visit HortTrades.com/hero and click on the Volunteer button. Details on the various projects to honour frontline workers will be communicated in the fall of 2020. 6
