GFS Perth

05/09/2026

In the 1990s New York City decided to auction off a large number of small community gardens. These were the patches of green that people in poor neighbourhoods had built themselves, by hand, out of rubble-strewn empty lots.

Bette Midler founded the New York Restoration Project in 1995 and, with the Trust for Public Land, bought them instead.

114 gardens, kept.

She called NYRP the conservancy of forgotten places, and it never stopped: reclaiming neglected parks, gardens and waterfronts in the parts of the city nobody funds.

When New York set out to plant a million trees, NYRP became the lead nonprofit partner and planted more than 200,000 of them. The million was reached two years early.

The United States Congress entered her work into the Congressional Record.

She is 80 and it is still running.

05/09/2026

💚 What if being busy isn’t the same as being well?

We live in a culture that often celebrates productivity. Being busy can become a badge of honour and slowing down can somehow feel uncomfortable but human beings weren’t designed simply to produce. We were designed to connect.

That’s part of the thinking behind our work on Social Fitness at Friendship Central.

Just as physical fitness needs regular attention, our capacity for friendship, connection, reciprocity, curiosity and simply being with other people needs exercising too.

Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do isn’t accomplish one more task.
It’s put down the phone.
Leave the desk.
Share a cuppa.
Dig in the garden.
Listen to somebody.
Laugh.
Help.
Belong.

At Friendship Central, we want to create a place where doing and being can sit comfortably alongside each other because a healthy life isn’t measured only by what we produce.

Learn more @ www.gfsperth.com.au

05/09/2026

💚 What if being busy isn’t the same as being well?

We live in a culture that often celebrates productivity. Being busy can become a badge of honour and slowing down can somehow feel uncomfortable b ut human beings weren’t designed simply to produce. We were designed to connect.

That’s part of the thinking behind our work on Social Fitness at Friendship Central.
Just as physical fitness needs regular attention, our capacity for friendship, connection, reciprocity, curiosity and simply being with other people needs exercising too.

Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do isn’t accomplish one more task.
It’s put down the phone.
Leave the desk.
Share a cuppa.
Dig in the garden.
Listen to somebody.
Laugh.
Help.
Belong.

At Friendship Central, we want to create a place where doing and being can sit comfortably alongside each other because a healthy life isn’t measured only by what we produce.
www.gfsperth.com.au

05/09/2026

05/09/2026

There is something wonderfully grounding about gardening. When our minds are busy, our hands can still dig, plant, water and tend.

Research increasingly supports what gardeners have long understood: spending time in gardens and green spaces can support wellbeing, reduce stress, encourage gentle physical activity and give us opportunities for connection, purpose and belonging.

But at Friendship Central, we want to take this a little further… gardening immersion will be part of how FRIENDSHIP CENTRAL feels, not simply something we offer. People will be able to wander through growing spaces, help water something, pull a w**d, plant a seed, learn alongside somebody else or simply sit amongst the greenery with a cuppa.
Our permaculture spaces will create natural opportunities for people of different ages and backgrounds to work alongside one another because sometimes conversation comes more easily when our hands are busy.

Growing plants. Growing friendships. Growing wellbeing.
That’s very much what Friendship Central is about.
www.gfsperth.com.au

04/09/2026

🌿 WE ALL NEED A VILLAGE 🌿

We’ve all heard the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.”
But perhaps the truth is even bigger than that.
It takes a village to be human.
We need people around us. People to talk with, laugh with, learn from, grow alongside and occasionally lean on. We need places where generations mix, where strangers can become familiar faces and where friendship has the chance to grow.
And villages don’t simply appear. We build them, one conversation, one shared cuppa, one helping hand and one friendship at a time.
That’s exactly what we’re creating at FRIENDSHIP CENTRAL in the Swan Valley.

A place to drop in for coffee.
A place to garden, volunteer, learn or simply belong.
A place for children, families, older people and everyone in between.
A place where you don’t have to arrive already knowing somebody.

Because in an increasingly disconnected world, perhaps one of the most important things we can create is somewhere people can find each other.

💚 Friendship Central is our attempt to rebuild the village.

And the wonderful thing about a village?
Everyone has something to bring.
Www.gfsperth.com.au