During 2014 the Rotary Club of Howrah presented a rotary hoe bought using club funds and a Rotary Tasmania District Grant to the Risdon Vale Community via the  Second Bite food recycling organisation .

Rotarian David Lamb of the Community Service Committee of the Rotary Club of Howrah makes the following observations.

“This project is not really about a machine that cultivates soil, but rather is a project in which Rotary is assisting four other linked community organisations to continue to expand their positive influence on our whole Tasmanian community.”

At Risdon Vale there is a large Community Garden that has supplied vegetables for that Community’s aged and financially disadvantaged. The Risdon Prison has assisted with labour to work in the garden and surplus fresh vegetables are donated to SecondBite.

The Prison has a rehabilitation programme titled ‘Giving Back’ which encourages prisoners to make or grow things which can be donated to the community while learning skills which will help them to find work when discharged.

Gardening has proved to be popular and Corrective Services have developed a 1.2 hectare garden within the prison using an aged rotary hoe which is now unserviceable.

Fresh vegetables from this garden are donated to SecondBite, with over one tonne being donated over the past two years.

Adjoining the prison is a large property owned by The Christian Family Centre. This organisation is very active in the Risdon Vale community.

For example, one of the services it provides is to offer free short term accommodation for prisoner’s family members who travel from centres throughout the state to visit inmates at the prison.

This property has a large disused dam and adjacent arable land.

Recently prisoners have cleared much of the dam of bulrushes and weed, installed water piping and fully fenced a 1.6 hectare area. This land has been cultivated using the same aged machine that was used in the prison garden.

Fresh vegetables from this garden will be distributed throughout the state by SecondBite.

The Howrah Rotary hoe is going to be a very active machine. “