£89,000 National Lottry boost for Peterborough community cafe and garden

Westraven Community Café and Garden CIO has been awarded £8900 from The National Lottery Community Fund to support its work to held reduce climate change.

The centre will use the funding to create a program of activities, training and workshops that will start to build a community-led response to both climate change and the ecological crisis.

These will include growing fruit, veg and edible flowers alongside a heritage garden using heirloom seeds, improving biodiversity and creating habitats for wildlife, which will include carpentry workshops for all ages; making Bee Hotels from old pallets and upcycled wood, as well as recruiting more volunteers and various training sessions for the community.

There will also be helbolgy workshops where residents will be able to learn how to use everyday plants and flowers to support their health and wellbeing; alongside cooking workshops and sessions on how to save seeds and store produce such as chutneys and jams.

They will also be making changes to the cafe menu, creating lots more vegan and vegetarian options.

The community garden has already run a series of consultations with local residents and visitors to the garden, with the aim of programming a range of activities and workshops inspired by this feedback.

Luke Payn, Community Garden Projects Manager said: “This is a great opportunity for us to build capacity and resilience within our community as we all pull together to tackle the challenges of the climate and ecological crisis.

“The project will provide important connections with nature and food production whilst helping us continue our work building a healthy and happy community for whom being in nature and spending quality time in vibrant green spaces is so important for their physical, mental and social wellbeing.”

Fiona Smith, Chair of Trustees at the Westraven Community Café and Garden CIO added: “Thanks to National Lottery players, this grant means that we can deliver engaging and relevant activities that will inspire and empower the community and help us adapt to climate change as a community as well as improve the local biodiversity.

"This will make a big difference to people’s lives.”