Treehouse Soap owner Lea Bartlett wanted to do something sweet to help the community during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The handmade soap business made a new bar with local honey – “Bee 4 U” – and is donating all the proceeds to SIRCH Community Kitchen, which is providing free meals during the crisis. Bartlett is also offering free soap to interested community organizations, donating a batch to Community Living Trent Highlands May 8 to distribute to those in need.

“My initial thoughts were just to create a really healthy soap using local bee products and then it just evolved into, why not do this? This would just be good for everybody,” Bartlett said.

She added that soap and cleanliness are common topics due to COVID-19 and figured some organizations would be interested in her products.

“The donation goes to such a worthy cause,” she said, noting SIRCH is cooking 600-800 meals per week. “It’s an amazing number of people they help out.”

SIRCH food services co-ordinator Jay McIvor said the support the organization has gotten is fantastic.

“Just awesome. We are really overwhelmed with the community support. Kind of puts winds in our sails here,” McIvor said.

He noted other groups have also helped, including thousands of dollars worth of food donations from Sysco Canada and the Lakeside Baptist Church providing dessert for meals.

SIRCH has hired two full-time staff to manage the increased workload and McIvor said they expect to maintain a higher capacity throughout the pandemic, and likely beyond it, thanks to facility improvements such as freezers.

“We don’t expect the economy to jump right back into full gear. It’s probably going to go back slowly,” McIvor said. “I imagine there’s still going to be those food security issues we can meet.”

The soap was made with local ingredients, Bartlett said, adding bee products can make for quality soap. Each also features a stamp hand-carved by her 94-year-old father Joseph Gottfried.

“Honey is good for you, honey’s good for your skin,” she said. “Helps to keep the moisture at a good level.”

Bartlett said she hopes she can sell at least 200 of the new bars, valued at $9 each, to help SIRCH.

“That, to me, would be an amazing amount to contribute.”

“Bee 4 U” is available at treehousesoap.ca/products/bee-4-u-charity-soap.

Community gardens are working to open under new social distancing restrictions after the province declared them essential April 25.

With the growing season approaching, local gardens are working to adhere to new health unit guidelines to operate this summer. Those include preventing the general public from accessing gardens, limiting to five people at a time, maintaining a two-metre distance from others and members using their own tools as much as possible. Groups are required to submit a checklist to the health unit about operations before opening.

The Eagle Lake Community Church garden is one of them. Pastor Garry Swagerman said the small group that runs it is preparing to start as scheduled June 1.

“It’s important that we do have gardens. This is one of the things that people are going to turn to in light of social distancing, in light of what might happen while grocery shopping,” Swagerman said.

The Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit said in a press release gardens are required to notify them about their intentions to operate and confirm they are following guidelines.

“Community gardens are truly an essential service in allowing many local residents to grow, access and enjoy fresh food,” public health inspector Dharminder Kaler said. “We’re all in this together, so we encourage community gardens to put health and safety first as they go about their growing season.”

Other local gardens are also preparing to open, including the ones run by Community Living Trent Highlands (CLTH) in Haliburton.

“CLTH passionately believes in food security for Haliburton village and is committed to doing whatever we need to in order to keep our gardens open and safe for all,” executive director Teresa Jordan said.

Swagerman said there is a list of 22 restrictions to follow but expects his garden will be able to comply. The Eagle Lake Community Church garden is also adding a new plot this season to provide for food banks.

“Our hope this year is to start implementing food for the community. I think with COVID-19, that makes it even more important,” he said.