This was one of 15 Otago community charitable projects tackled yesterday by bank volunteers under the ''BNZ Closed for Good'' scheme.
The Dunedin and Otago projects were among more than 500 ''Closed for Good'' projects undertaken by more than 3200 BNZ staff throughout the country, in what BNZ organisers said was ''New Zealand's single biggest day of volunteering''.
Under the scheme, bank volunteers can devote their day to charitable work on behalf of the community, on one of two days earmarked for charitable work by BNZ staff each year.
Other Dunedin projects included a makeover of the hall at Pine Hill School, in Hislop St, Liberton, and cleaning up and helping with maintenance at George Street Normal School.
Another initiative involved sorting baby clothing at Pregnancy Help Otago.
The Sara Cohen School in Caversham seeks to ''deliver quality education'' to pupils with special learning needs, and includes 18-21-year-olds who are ''working in a transition programme to prepare them for life beyond school''.
School principal Raewyn Alexander said the volunteers, under the overall co-ordination of Otago University Emeritus Prof Martin Ferguson, had done an ''amazing'' job of transforming the vegetable garden and making other changes, including relocating tussock plants in the area.
These ''hugely positive'' changes would allow school staff and pupils using wheelchairs easier access to the garden area.
This would open up big new learning opportunities, including the planting, growing and cooking of vegetables, she said.
Prof Ferguson, a retired Otago professor of dentistry, said this was a ''great'' example of the productive town-gown links he was trying to promote, involving the university and the wider community.
When he arrived at 8.30am yesterday, he discovered that volunteers from the bank and the dentistry school had already been working since 8am, he said.
