GREEN-FINGERED volunteers are needed to help a Liverpool hostel to continue its award-winning community projects.
The team at the YMCA, in Leeds Street, is appealing for kind-hearted garden enthusiasts to keep its allotments scheme running.
It is part of the Homeless Hostels Food Alliance, which won the award for Environment and Health Project at the Daily Post’s It’s Our World Awards this summer.
The scheme grows fresh vegetables to feed the homeless and was launched to combat the increasing price of food and to help people who do not have access to their own transport to get good-quality produce.
But YMCA project officer Peter Boyle said: “We have lost our main gardener recently. He has gone on to get a job as a gardener full-time, so we are really struggling at the moment.
“Ideally, we are looking for volunteers who might be able to help out with the projects – either people who have worked as gardeners, or people who just enjoy gardening.”
As the project has developed, it has started to work with schools and old people’s homes to get them growing their own food, too.
Mr Boyle added: “It is something which benefits everyone in the community.
“For children, it is a great tool for education – they eat the things they have grown and it teaches them about nutrition at the same time.” Research has shown that gardening can offer enough moderate physical activity to keep people fit, while reducing stress levels and promoting healthier eating.
It is also hard not to enjoy life when surrounded by flowers, vegetables and all the wildlife they attract.
Mr Boyle said: “For older people in homes, it is very relaxing.
“For people who might have had gardens previously, it offers them the opportunity to do something they have enjoyed and, again, it gets them eating really fresh food at a very low cost.
“We can make gardens which are suitable for people with reduced mobility, too – we put in raised beds and planters so they can be easily watered and harvested.”
IF YOU can help, call 0151-600 3530 or email Peter.Boyle@liverpoolymca.org.uk
