Mona Street Community Garden

The Pitch

Problem statement

We want to continue running sessions and developing our community garden in Salford. Since taking over the site - formerly a disused car park, we have transformed the space into a community asset where we can run wellbeing and volunteering sessions and teach community members how to grow food. We work with vulnerable adults and adults in supported accommodation as well as the wider community. The site caters to a local need for green spaces, outdoor spaces to socialise and wellbeing provision. Community Garden projects are proven to reduce social isolation and increase community cohesion, both of which have been identified by the Salford Health Development Team as local issues.

Solution

Mona Street Community Garden will give communities a space to practice horticulture and to improve their skills through teaching and passing knowledge between community members, further strengthening community bonds. There will be the added benefit of introducing people to organic, local & freshly grown vegetables & fruit to encourage them to grow & eat more healthily at home, improving greenspace in the community & increasing biodiversity. We want to run 32 weeks of free sessions for the community, working together to develop the site by creating new raised beds. We will also create a group of Garden Ambassadors, who will take an active role in developing the site.

Why are we best placed to deliver?

Manchester Urban Diggers are community gardeners working to create change in our food system, and create green urban spaces for community use. Our flagship site at Platt Fields Market Garden in Fallowfield has proven a huge success for the local community and local economy and is a valued asset for NHS social prescribing. We are experienced community growers and facilitators. We've been running sessions at Mona Street since Autumn 2020, working with local community groups and organisations to reach those in need. From our evaluation work in Jan '21, we found that 100% of our participants felt their wellbeing had improved through taking part in our projects.

Focus Areas

Delivery plan

Budget breakdown

Beneficiaries

40 people

Expected impact

We expect this project to have a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of the wider local community who will access, use and help maintain the garden. The funding would ensure communities will be able to continue to access and enjoy a free programme of horticulture education led by Manchester Urban Diggers, and to be able to gain and share skills with other community members. We will also benefit our neighbours at the site, the community kitchen For the Love of Food, by providing them with hyper-local organic veg for free. In addition, we will work with the Move on Up Project, who support people with Complex Needs towards self-management of their own condition(s), develop independence/daily living skills, integrate into the community, develop meaningful relationships, navigate services and (where appropriate) manage a tenancy. Our long term goal is that the site is open to the public and events.

Track record

During what has been a very tough year for many in Manchester and beyond, we conducted a wellbeing questionnaire in December 2020, and 100% of respondents (50) said their wellbeing had improved as a result of volunteering with MUD. The survey included the following response: “It connected me up with people from my local area and formed a little community which I found very helpful to my mental well-being over the pandemic. MUD provided a safe, friendly and stabilising environment for me.” - Pete. Across our 6 community gardens, we engage over 400 volunteers, logging an average of 100 hours of volunteering a week. Across our projects we produce over 50 varieties of vegetables, reduce food miles and food waste through our Gleaning work. We are also an NHS Green Prescribing partner.

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