(left to right) Ken Giesbrecht, Dr. Paul Peters, Karen Loewen, Fred Kaita
 
A little bit of colour has been gifted to Eden East thanks to some local garden enthusiasts.  Steinbach and Area Garden Club President Karen Loewen says the group presented $1,000 to Eden East in appreciation of Dr. Paul Peters.  She explains the 'green' cash is to be used to plant flowers and other plants, which will provide colour at some of the Eden East housing units.

Loewen notes Dr. Peters has a long history both with Eden East and the garden club and they wanted to do something in recognition of his involvement in the community.  She says Dr. Peters is an avid gardener and has been a great inspiration to all of them.  Dr. Peters and Fred Kaita were co-founders of the Garden Club.

Eden East Board Member Ken Giesbrecht says Dr. Peters has been involved for many years, originally as Board Chair at Eden Healthcare Services in Winkler and then later became involved with Eden East.  Dr. Peters was also part of the Penfeld Court project where he was on the building committee and very involved in getting that project off the ground.

Giesbrecht adds Dr. Peters spent a lot of time working in mental health and had a real compassion for it.

Dr. Peters says he is quite humbled to be honoured in this way and is pleased to have been involved in both organizations.  He reminisces, when they decided to partner with Eden Healthcare Services to form Eden East, they finally had the support of a CAO who helped build a foundation for the developments in Steinbach.  There was also a time when governments would come in with major grants and that money made it possible to build the 24 unit Penfeld Courts in Steinbach. 

Dr. Peters adds a new venture now on Wilson Street will help satisfy the need our community has for housing for people with certain health problems, especially mental health problems.

Meanwhile he tells us gardening has been a hobby of his for many years.  He had several green houses and his friend Fred Kaita was the stimulus to get organized in the area.  The result is a very active garden club which is quite involved in the community.