The Growing Together project in the Cross Green area of Leeds has been selected as one of five finalists in the People’s Projects competition funded by the National Lottery. Growing Together is thus on the brink of acquiring the funds to plant a community orchard just a mile from Leeds city centre…..the project just needs to be chosen as one of the winners. That outcome is in your hands – the winner is chosen by public vote!! 

Please, please, please vote for Growing Together NOW! Just click HERE.

The People’s Projects is a partnership between the Big Lottery Fund, ITV, STV and The National Lottery that gives the public a say in the awarding of National Lottery funding to local projects across the UK. Since 2005, around £36 million has been awarded through this partnership to 770 good causes across the UK.

In September 2016 the Big Lottery Fund invited projects that have received funding through its small grants programmes over the past year to say what they had achieved and how they would like to develop their project further. Based on the responses, five projects were shortlisted in each television region to go forward to the public vote which would decide who would receive a further £50,000 funding.

Growing Together and four other Yorkshire-based projects were chosen as fainslis for teh Yorkshire region. Growing Together need your vote NOW if it is to receive the additional funds which have been designated, if won,  for teh community orcahrd!! You don’t have to live in Yorkshire or even watch Calendar, the regional programme featuring the competition!! Just vote for Growing Together!!! Voting closes at noon on Monday 3^rd April. Do it NOW by clicking here!

Cross Green is not usually a centre of attention. If there is anything about deprived areas of Leeds then you will hear about Harehills, Bumantofts, Woodhouse and perhaps one or two more, but rarely Cross Green. This seems odd. Cross Green is sadly significantly worse than the national average in the indices of deprivation, with adults and children having poor diet and lifestyles, poor educational attainment, lower than average life expectancy and above average long term unemployment. The area also has a large number of people living alone which, when added the poor transport links into the city, means a high level of social isolation and related problems such as poor mental and physical well being.

Growing Together was launched in 2014 as a small project to create communal garden space on an unused bridge. By the start of 2015 it had evolved into an ambitious project to transform land alongside the railway from a derelict eyesore into a productive growing space. The pictures below represent the output from the first year of growing.

The project is led by Cross Green Community Group, a self-help group created by residents, and supported by Hyde Park Source, a Leeds charity seeking improvement in health and well being through improving local environments. As such the project brings together residents of Cross Green with volunteers from Hyde Park Source, many of whom experience physical or learning difficulties. If you don’t do anything else as a result of reading the Feeding Body and Soul blog, please do vote for Cross Green Growing Together. It is a truly inspiring story for all of us about the resilience and community spirit in Leeds – permaculture and people coming together to make special things happen. Search through Feeding Body and Soul using the search facility on the right of the screen for earlier posts to find out more.

……and please, just VOTE!