"I was in a wheelchair and thought my life was over, but the allotments are beautiful, they bring me such joy, I love the people, we are all friends."
The Windmill Allotment Community is a well established group, a little united nations of many races, we all are brought together by the love of growing food. We help each other.
This is a community resource that has been used for over 100 years. It embodies the history and amenity value of the local neighbourhood but has been run down under the current ownership. The community has decided to regenerate it.
We are a multinational group of local people who are bound together by our interest in growing food.
Our group has a large number of chronically sick, elderly and disabled members as well as able members and some with young children.
Our vision is to build a stronger community and draw in more people to:
- share this wonderful resource with disadvantaged groups
- reveal and expound the history of the site, and
- the development of allotments practices
- explore horticultural therapy
- hold celebrations and link with educational courses
We began by creating the Intergenerational project working with isolated and lonely elderly people living in the local Care Home who use wheelchairs but who were interested in allotment gardening.
We recruit train and support local volunteers to befriend them and to allotment garden along side and for them. We include a different primary school each year to enjoy outdoor classes on the shared plot one morning a week. The aim is to enable people and to help them learn healthy living skills.
Future projects could include:
- Cultural Cuisine
- Therapeutic Food
- Working with schools and young people
- Working with other groups
- Encouraging creativity
Windmill Allotments is a unique project showing how a community can be cohesive across age and nationality barriers. By supporting this community we can also safeguard this precious site.