Oxley High School student Brandon McManus is just 14 and has turned a gardening project into one that will benefit the whole school community.

The local youth is one of a group of about 16 students taking part in the Youth Frontier’s Program – a mentoring program that focuses on leadership and civic engagement.

Together with the help of his mentors, including school well-being officer Robert McPherson Brandon, he came up with the idea of building a vegetable garden and distributing the fresh produce to local nursing home residents.

Tamworth’s Billabong Clubhouse offered up the use of their garden beds for the project and staff from Bunnings Warehouse came on board with some donations of plants, soil and tools.

A working bee at the Clubhouse late last week saw the project come to life.

“I wanted to help out the nursing homes that don’t have fresh vegies so I asked Billabong if I could plant these vegetables here and I’m going to donate some of the vegies to them and give most of it to the nursing homes,” Brandon said.

“When my nana was in a nursing home she never really had nice fresh vegetables and I thought I might help the other elderly people. I feel very grateful for the help.”

It’s now up to Brandon to tend to the vegetable patch once a week.