Growing Success: Hutton House & The PATCH

Meet Hutton House and the PATCH! Hutton House is a non-profit that supports adults with disabilities through programming that develops valuable skills, and they’re one of the Old East Village BIA’s Associate Partners! Hutton House began life in 1952 as the Association for Handicapped Adults, and over the past 70 years has been providing a safe and comfortable environment where people can learn and achieve whatever goal they set their mind to. The PATCH was started as a subset of Hutton House through a collaboration with the Nathan T. Deslippe Memorial Fund and Kensington Village Association, focusing on food insecurity in London through urban farming at sites like the one right here in Old East Village, called Nathan’s Urban Farm. “What we found, especially through the pandemic, was that people engaging in Hutton house's services, food insecurity is one of the barriers that they were dealing with,” says Doruntina Uka, a Business Development Specialist at the PATCH. “And Joe Gansevles, one of the founders of the PATCH, through his own personal experience, gaining skills on a farm growing up, he saw the value of the work, and the way that it could impact people, both individually and collectively.”

The PATCH operates three locations, one outdoor farm and two indoors. The OEV location, Nathan’s Urban Farm, is located within the Grove at the Western Fair District. Nathan’s Urban Farm runs several different programs, from traditional job skills development to volunteer growing. When we went in for our interview, the SEED program was running, which focuses on giving aspiring entrepreneurs with barriers to employment the tools they need for success.  “When you look at Old East Village and that Dundas corridor, specifically, a lot of the businesses are oriented around that food service type of industry,” says Andrew Hunniford, WorkWell manager at the PATCH. “Members of the BIA and the patch and Hutton House, definitely two groups of people that are aligned in terms of their mission, vision and values. That's where we see value in partnering.” Hunniford adds that with Dundas Street having so many businesses centered around food, programs like the PATCH are a natural fit for OEV.

Organizations like Hutton House place a big emphasis on building an inclusive community, and having a PATCH location in OEV only supports that goal. Speaking on that community connection, Uka says that there’s no neighbourhood quite like OEV. “My job is centered around food, supporting food business, and reintegrating food into the fabric of a place. The beauty of OEV is that it’s an old neighbourhood and so integrated with shops and residential instead of being separated like other neighborhoods.” In fact, all produce grown at PATCH sites are distributed to local agencies who support individuals experiencing food insecurity, meaning every effort at the patch goes directly to supporting local communities.

So what does the future look like for an organization like the PATCH? Uka would like to see small PATCHes throughout the city, including more locations in OEV. “You can use underutilized space to grow food and share it with your community and create opportunities for connections when it comes to helping people find jobs, integrate, and thrive,” she says. “Third spaces are disappearing, and there's not a lot of places where you can meet and connect with people. And I think the PATCH does that.” 

For those interested in volunteering with the PATCH, visit https://www.patchlondon.ca/volunteer or email Patchprogram@huttonhouse.com. More information on Hutton House can be found at https://www.huttonhouse.com/