Sensory Garden and community garden workshops

Application for Grant funding from The Friends of the University of Reading

Redlands Primary School, a one form entry, mainstream state school (and the nearest Primary School to Whiteknights Campus) needs green space. It’s PTA, Friends of Redlands (a charity), with the full backing of the school, and in partnership with Erleigh Road Community Garden, would like to turn the Redlands Primary School’s small, tarmac playground into a Sensory Garden (and Gardening) Playground space, and to create a programme of community gardening workshops that would serve to inform, inspire, and invest in a new generation of gardeners, and to support community wellbeing and wildlife. The workshops would welcome attendees from the school community, the wider resident community, and give opportunities for university student and staff volunteers to get involved too. These would take place at the school, as well as at Erleigh Road Community Garden.

Redlands Primary School is already a place where University of Reading University students can come to volunteer to complete their RED award. But this volunteering is generally centred around those who want to embark on a career in teaching. This would be an opportunity to bring in other students and staff who wish to volunteer in different ways.  We’d also hope that the open hand offered to the University community to connect with the local school, and Erleigh Road Community Garden might help improve relationships between the student residents and the full-term resident community. We have connections with RUSU (Reading University Student Union), and the University of Reading School of Art.  We are also in talks with other university departments to build our connections to support volunteering opportunities.

Any grant awarded would go towards ‘hardware’, such as building raised beds, buying soil and seeds for the school, and to pay for professional community gardeners and horticulturalists to deliver workshops both at the community garden and at Redlands School.

We are seeking a grant of £2000. But would like to underline that a smaller contribution would be very welcome too.