The Parks, who operate the Thornton Church of Christ, hosted a community meeting to invite and grow ideas for the community space by asking two questions – what does Thornton need and what kind of space could fill that brief? 

Mrs Parks said the community used the opportunity to express their desire to build a space that  children, parents and young ­people could use. 

It was decided that a public ­garden, with a focus on ­food-bearing plants, would meet the ­community’s needs.

“Gardens are a great way to make a space beautiful but food gardens bring people together,” Mrs Parks said.

Reverend Doug Morrison-Cleary, who operates St Michael’s Anglican Church next door to the Parks’s church, offered to provide a parcel of his church’s land for the garden project. 

The garden would be used to grow food that would have ­educational, nutritional and ­societal benefits.

“Food is social and it can even be educational,” Mrs Parks said.

“Gardens teach children the journey of food from paddock to plate, cultivating and harvesting tomatoes shows that they don’t come from plastic containers in the supermarket.”

The couple previously ­galvanised Thornton’s com­munity spirit around the maligned skate park in April when they transformed it into a colourful hive of activity for Youth Week.

But they said the forum showed them that the skate park was not meeting all the community’s needs.

“Basically, the overwhelming desire was more than a skate park, there were calls for amenities like water, barbecues, picnic grounds, water, bins,” Mrs Parks said.

“The skate park is not an identifiable or even a named space in the community, but if we revamped the surrounds and added the garden, the park would fill those gaps. 

“It would be something deliberately constructed as a community space, and that’s what is missing.”

Mr Parks said he did not fear vandalism of the proposed garden because the people of Thornton would take pride in something they collectively owned.

“If you let people paint their skate park how they want and pick the veggies and cook in the garden, they’ll love to spend their time there,” he said.

The group hopes to gather community momentum behind the project before they approach council with specific requests for funding.

A statement released by Maitland City Council community and recreation services manager Lynn Morton said council ­welcomed the project.

The Thornton Garden Taskforce meets at Thornton Church of Christ on the last Saturday of every month as a show of support for the project. 

They plan to collect ­material to build garden beds on Saturday and will host a working bee on July 28.

The taskforce hopes to begin planting in August and serving coffee from a ­coffee cart to fund the project from September 1 – the first day of spring.

Those interested should contact the church through the website www.thorntonchurchofchrist.org