A down to earth project you’ll be rooting for…

If you’re familiar with our work, you’ll know we’re a pretty down to earth group of people here at Caritas.  

But, if you think we’re down to earth, wait until you hear about one of the latest projects at our Caritas Lalley Centre Community Allotment.  You’ll hopefully be rooting for it! 

If you’re not familiar with it, our Lalley Community Allotment in North Manchester sees people from the local community coming together to produce a range of organic, delicious produce.  The food is then distributed through our community food pantry to families and individuals who need support and don’t often have access to fresh fruit and vegetables. 

With more than 333,000 children living in poverty in our diocese – around one in every two children in a class – the support given at our day centres and other projects really does make a difference at a time of acute crisis for many families. 

The team at the community allotment, led by our coordinator Raddon, recently launched the Caritas Compost Club – a special group which has been engaging with children from the neighbouring St Malachy’s school in reducing and recycling food waste, with ‘un-be-leaf-able’ results (and just a few bad compost and gardening puns). 

Visitors to the allotment – including regular and corporate volunteers, adult education classes and school and wellbeing groups – also take part, making it a real community effort. There’s even a special compost song which is sung each day when the children visit for composting! 

Combining positive environmental action, education and community engagement, the project recycles the food waste from the school and food pantry to create peat-free compost, which is then used on the allotment.  Despite the project being in its infancy, just nine months in, it has already had some great results recycling 6,171l of food waste and producing 7482l of compost, weighing around eight tonnes.  The difference in weight is from adding waste wood products including brown card to help the composting process, which will also help speed up a compost pile at home if you have one too. 

From the St Malachy’s parents locally who responded to a survey about the project, 43% of children had mentioned compost club at home with 58% either much or slightly more engaged in reducing waste. They also reported that 68% of the children were more engaged in recycling and that 68% of the parents felt reducing/recycling food waste was more important now, thanks to the project.  Best of all, 45% of households responding had started using a green bin or composting as a result of the project. 

We can’t wait for this transformational project to continue going from strength to strength and would be keen to hear from other schools or projects interested in setting up their own versions of our compost club.  

As the headteacher of St Malachy’s said: “I’d say it’s a highly successful way of bringing recycling to life for the children…I feel it’s a really unique opportunity and we’re privileged to be part of it.”  

Find out more about the Lalley Centre, Community Pantry and Allotment.