The Youth Grow Garden Centre made its final sale yesterday as the retail side of the organisation closed.
Children and young adults learn horticulture skills in Youth Grow, which is part of Presbyterian Support Otago’s Family Works programme and which has run for more than 20 years.
More than 100 people were in the garden centre on Saturday morning taking advantage of the half-price closing-down sale and saying goodbye to the centre.
Family Works director Carmen Batchelor said the closure was "a long time coming".
The organisation relied on internal funding from rest-homes, which had dropped since Covid-19 began.
The garden centre had been running at a loss for a long time, but the closure was "just gutting".
A lot of the products were grown by the Youth Grow programme, but some plants had to be purchased for retail.
The weekend had been incredibly busy, but almost everybody had been patient.
Tomato and strawberry plants were among the most popular items, but almost the entire store had been gutted of stock.
She was checking to see if people had cash while the cashiers were trying their best to keep up with eftpos demand, she said.
Any leftover goods would likely be sold to local retailers.
Youth Grow would continue with its social programmes and the garden centre space would be changed into more teaching areas soon, she said.
