Bill started volunteering with Easy Care Gardening in December 2004. A year later Maree decided to volunteer as well. Easy Care Gardening is a gardening service for frail aged pensioners and people with a disability on a pension. Teams of gardening volunteers weed, prune, mulch and make gardens safe and tidy so that people can remain in their own homes.

Bill and Maree work in the same team one day a week, but while Bill works quietly on his own (“he’s not much of a talker”), Maree enjoys the company of the other volunteers.
Maree joined Easy Care Gardening because she wanted to meet new people. She didn’t join because of a great desire to help the elderly – she hadn’t had much experience with older people at the time - but she soon realised what a difference her gardening work was making to the elderly, and that so many of the elderly people simply enjoyed the company.

Maree explains that she is “not a cup of coffee type person”. She likes digging in the dirt, being outside and getting things done. The volunteer work is “not moving mountains” but is her “own little way of making a contribution”.

“I know lots of people who complain about how bored they are. Why don’t they go out and volunteer and get involved?", asks Maree.

As well as keeping fit, getting out and about, and feeling like she is making a contribution to her community, Maree enjoys the gardening because she enjoys meeting people and, as she explains so well; “It doesn’t matter where you come from, we’re all equal as gardeners".