To Celebrate RHS National Gardening Week 2024, we took a trip to St Peter’s Community Hall and Gardens and Cardiff Salad Garden CIC to learn more about how the simple act of gardening and growing is bringing communities together.
St Peter’s Community Hall and Gardens based in Fairwater provides opportunities for people in the community to improve their health and wellbeing, especially those who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Members of the community are given the chance to undertake training, develop skills and improve their social links.
Thanks to a grant of £93,636, from The National Lottery Community Fund St Peter’s Community Hall and Gardens have now employed a full-time Project Development Officer to support with various gardening activities and indoor functions.
With regular volunteers returning each week, we sat down with Community Hall Manager, Rachel, to learn more about the project and what the recent National Lottery grant has meant for their community.
“From the moment we arrive, even if you’ve had a bad morning, you walk into these gardens and look around, it immediately just takes all your troubles and all your worries completely away,” Rachel explained.
“The grant has transformed the number for people able to come to the gardens. We’ve now got three members of staff working which means we can accommodate so many volunteers on a weekly basis.”
The Community Hall and Gardens relies on local volunteers to maintain and develop the community garden. In 2022, St. Peter’s achieved a Green Flag award for the eighth year in a row. The award was issued to celebrate the organisation’s dedication to caring for the environment and maintaining community culture.
“We’re like a little family at St. Peter’s,” Rachel added.
“So, there’s no loneliness when you’re here, I’d honestly say that it’s a magical place. The best thing here has got to be the people. Everybody has got their own garden talent and gifts, so everything is really unique. Everybody here is just something special.”
Another community garden nearby in Bute Park is Cardiff Salad Garden CIC who combine growing and selling fresh cut salad leaves with working to promote positive mental health. They received a grant of £95,726 from The National Lottery Community Fund to employ a number of staff to continue to provide weekly sessions for members of the community and build sustainable links with other organisations.
The organisation’s ‘Growing Connections’ project, which is based in the heart of Bute Park, offers a range of volunteer opportunities for the local community. Cemented in gardening and producing salad, volunteers are taught how to sow seeds correctly, harvest crops and tend to a variety of delicious locally grown produce.
Manager and Founding Director, Sophie Bolton, said: “Cardiff Salad Garden CIC started in 2017. We originally got one green house from Cardiff Council and now we’ve expanded to have two more polytunnels.
“We grow all different kinds of salad leaves here. We promote well–being through growing sessions twice a week, where people can come to us and they can help us grow the salad, plant seed and seedlings and just really get involved in the community.”
One important aspect added to each of the sessions is a tea break, where volunteers and staff come together to build deeper connections through their love of gardening.
“I hope volunteers feel a part of a really strong community where they feel supported by each other,” Sophie added.
“We work really hard as an organisation to give them a session where they can come if they’ve got worries or they’re unhappy. They’ve got a place where they can have a cup of tea and put aside everyday life. A lot of people are isolated and lonely, so they now have this community.”
St Peter’s Community Hall and Gardens and Cardiff Salad Garden CIC have received grants from both The National Lottery Awards for All and People & Places funding programmes. To find out more about this funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, visit our website:
The National Lottery Community Fund Blog 