A combined effort for the Thorne ‘Community Gardens Project’ - that’s the Old Peoples Centre Gardens and St. Nicholas Church Hall Gardens to you and me is confirmed as a blooming marvellous result! To coin a phase, the new shoots of success sprouted forth to blossoming fruition in both locations as Maureen Taylor explained:
“The two and a half year endeavour was a joint project with a cocktail of differing funders from Y.R.C.C. (Yorkshire Rural Community Councill) WREN. (Wren Waste Recycling Environmental Limited) and S.R.B.6 that’s the Single Regeneration Budget.”
She said,
“Right from the start it was suggested to get some finance to improve the appearance of the Old Peoples Centre Gardens/Church Hall - kicked off by unkempt grass! If you remember last year, it was all sun, rain, sun, rain, sun, rain and it seemed every other day the lawn mower came out just to keep it tidy so thank goodness for small mercies!”
“To compliment each of the gardens we also pitched for a much needed overhaul of St.Nicholas Church Hall Garden at the same time. Steering Group meetings were always very positive but with an obvious requirement of low maintenance for the Old Peoples Centre Garden and a place for the children to play safe and secure in the Church Hall grounds, hence the playground.”
“But it turned out to be much more than just plants and shrubs! At the Old Peoples Centre new radiators, a new boiler, new doors and security shutters were added and indeed needed to keep the users groups happy and safe. ‘Darby and Joan’ are here and the very active ‘Over 60’s’ too - in fact any group that utilises the building can also use the garden facilities. Oh, and for the kids in the Church Hall we’ve Brownies, Rainbows, The Mama Group, that’s short for the “Meet A Mum Association” and I forget to mention ‘The Tots Praise group’ also ‘The Mothers Union’ and ‘The Kneeler Group’. So you can see both these hugely valuable community projects are well and truly catering for the noughties to the nineties and long may it continue!”
