Volunteers from a Derby housing training centre spent a day gardening at a homelessness project in Ilkeston, helping build raised beds and clear overgrowth.
A team from PfP Thrive, a training centre run by Places for People, spent the day at Derventio Housing Trust’s Growing Lives project in Cotmanhay.
The scheme, based in a former curtain tape factory, supports homeless people and others referred through drug and alcohol services through gardening, bike maintenance, cooking, crafts and art.
The volunteers weeded, trimmed hedges, jet washed paths and built raised beds and compost bin hatches.
Derventio Housing Trust is a social landlord that houses around 1,200 people a year across five counties, including Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire.
Andrew Corser, partnership manager at PfP Thrive, said: “We are connected to Derventio Housing Trust because we help train some of their housing and support officers. We want to work with local community housing associations and form strong partnerships with them as well as providing training.
“Thank you so much to the Places for People’s Estates team who worked so hard for the day. They trimmed hedges, weeded, built hatches for the compost bins and jet washed the paths. This was about real community partnership in action, and it was great to see colleagues from Places for People and Derventio Housing Trust come together to help create a peaceful retreat for people using this space – who themselves work tirelessly to make the wonderful space it is today.”
Sarah Hernandez, managing director of Derventio Housing Trust, said: “Thank you so much to the PfP Thrive team for helping out at Growing Lives. It’s great that partnership extends to more than just the demands of work but that organisations like this are prepared to give up their time to help out too.
“Growing Lives is a project that participants and staff work so hard to maintain. It’s proved to be invaluable in helping people on to a more positive pathway after going through hard times in their lives. So many former residents tell us how it helped them on to independent living and being economically active again.”
Main image: The team from PfP’s Thrive at Growing Lives in Ilkeston
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