All photos by Zsolt Sandor / MothershipUK
You can say one thing about Yorkshire folk – they certainly know how to throw a party. On Saturday, we held a Harvest Celebration at the Fewston Bridge community garden we share with Cross Green Community Group and Hyde Park Source. To say it was a roaring success is something of an understatement. Party goes included local residents, volunteers, gardeners, community activists, local councillors and members of various charitable boards and funding bodies.
It probably helped that the food, provided by The Real Junk Food Project, was amazing. They intercept perfectly edible food that supermarkets are going to throw away. This isn’t dumpster-diving – they’ve developed relationships with the big chains to prevent good food going to waste. Despite the fact that you have no idea what you’re going to get when you order the food (because they have no idea until it turns up), their professional chefs make sure that the resulting dishes are delicious. We were delighted they were able to cater for the event, as their message of sustainability and healthy living chimes well with our Growing Together philosophy.
It also helped that we had a fantastic sound system, great tunes and a good deal of lovely bunting. The sun didn’t exactly shine but there was no rain and lots of smiling faces. It was wonderful to showcase the garden; a patch of land that was a derelict dumping ground less than six months ago is now a thriving garden that anyone in the community can be involved with.
Local people have put a lot of hard work into the garden, and continue to do so, and the gardeners and volunteers from the three projects involved love to get their hands dirty pulling the whole thing together. The bridge garden has benefited too from some hard work from corporate volunteers – thank you, the Home Office, StepChange and Macdonalds, among others! If your organization would like a healthy, active away day, let us know. Our corporate volunteers always enjoy themselves so there must be something in it…
As we round off the growing season and start to work on future plans, it was a wonderful treat to celebrate the changes that have taken place over the last few months and thank the people who’ve made it all happen.
