Home and garden retailer Robert Dyas announced Day Drive Community Garden in Failsworth, Manchester as the winner of their Nominate Your Community Space competition. The competition is part of Robert Dyas’ successful Plant & Pause campaign, which encourages people to garden their way to better mental health.
We partnered the campaign for the third year running, bringing over 45 years of experience of Social and Therapeutic Horticulture to help improve people’s health.
The nationwide competition encouraged people to nominate a green community space in their local area, which had the potential to be transformed for the mental and physical health of their community with a prize of £2.5k worth of gardening equipment.
The team of volunteers at Day Drive Community Garden put forward the winning space – once an unused garage site – to provide food for those without easy access to healthy food, offer workshops to empower individuals with new skills, and create a calming social hub in an otherwise urban environment. The location of the site, Failsworth West, is part of Oldham, the most deprived borough in Greater Manchester*. Half of wards in Oldham are in the most deprived 20% in England overall, including Failsworth West* – as is Oldham as a whole**.
Our Training and Education Officer, Mark Emery joined the judging panel which included Robert Dyas chairman, Theo Paphitis; The Sun Gardening Editor and Associate Head of Features, Veronica Lorraine; multi-RHS-award-winning Cloud Gardener, Jason Williams; and Robert Dyas’ Marketing Manager, Donna Jackson.
Theo Paphitis, Robert Dyas’ owner and chairman and one of the judges of the competition, said: “…our winner this year had to be Day Drive Community Garden due to their plans for the benefit and prosperity of the local community, and the value our prizes could bring. It was a fantastic entry – congratulations to them!”
Asaf Efraim, lead volunteer at the Day Drive project, said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to have received this recognition – it's a lovely boost for the amazing people who helped transform the space into what it is now. There's a lot more work ahead in our newly established garden, and it's so motivational to know that others recognise our effort and see the value in what we're creating.”
The garden, which was previously an unused garage site overgrown with weeds and subject to fly-tipping, is in its first year of transformation. It will provide food for those without easy access to healthy food, reducing grocery costs in the deprived area against a national backdrop of ever-rising prices. Workshops will be provided on gardening, composting and sustainable practices to further support the community and empower individuals with new skills. They plan to transform the site into a vibrant community garden with flowers, vegetables and peaceful gathering spaces to offer a sense of calm and wellbeing.
Here at Thrive we were delighted to partner Robert Dyas’ Plant & Pause campaign which has once again been a great success this year.
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