Yarra View Bushland Nursery’s Car Park Sale event is more than just a chance to grab a great bargain for your garden, offering a duel purpose to the community and its employees.
The nursery is a social enterprise run by Knoxbrooke, a Victorian disability service provider based in Melbourne’s outer east, and every dollar spent will go towards employment opportunities for people living with a disability.
Yarra View commercial sales manager Chris Defina said the not-for-profit organisation was one of the largest and most successful social enterprises in Australia.
“We employ around 85 adults living with disability across three sites. Our three sites equate to around 33 acres and produce around 3 million plants per year,” he said.
“We’ve got three locations, here at York Road, Mt Evelyn, on Clegg Road in Mt Evelyn and another site in Wandin North.”
The car park sale, running from 26 May until 3 June, will see the nursery open from 8.30am to 4.30pm each day, including on Sunday, when it isn’t usually accessible to the public.
Mr Defina said “everything we do at Knoxbrooke and Yarra View is about giving people more employment opportunities.
“The more plants we sell and grow, the more jobs we can offer to people living with disability in our own community,” he said.
“The idea of our sale is to draw as many people into our car park sale and offer some huge savings to the public while creating new experiences for our employees.”
Knoxbrooke has been offering services for people with disabilities throughout the community for over 50 years.
Mr Defina said expert advice would be available from a team of horticulturalists, and the car park sale would create a new environment for employees to work in while having fun and doing something a little different to the normal work day.
“The car park sale is not something that we have done before and we are looking at making it into an annual event,“ he said.
Some of the plants available in the sale include trees, grasses, shrubs and Aussie natives.
He hopes the community will come out and support the sale, enjoy the experience and support the organisation.
“It wasn’t that long ago that a huge portion of the population living with a disability did not have a regular place of employment, and it did not come easy for them,“ he said.
“If you haven’t been before, it’s an opportunity to visit us and understand what we do and enjoy some great savings.”
For more information on Yarra View, visit yvbn.com.au
