The success of our innovative Plot to Plate project, funded by Big Lottery Fund Local Food Scheme, was recognised at the City Bridge Trust’s ‘Growing Localities Awards,’ when it received the runner up position in the category ‘Gardening and Growing Food’.
The Awards recognise and celebrate the very best of ‘growing and greening’ initiatives from non-profit organisations large and small. There were over a hundred applications for the five categories which each had a winner and runner-up award as well as two Judges’ Special Prizes.
The award recognised how Peter Bedford Housing Association’s “…Plot to Plate scheme is transforming the food culture and overall wellbeing of its residents, through providing skills training in growing, harvesting and cooking locally grown food. The scheme also supports tenant-run community kitchens and provides catering services for local organisations. The project’s focus is on developing participants’ knowledge of the association between food and lifestyle, whilst encouraging positive social relationships between tenants and developing partnerships with organisations in the local community. With its recent first successes in profiting from the sales of foraged leaves to local restaurants, the scheme has successfully demonstrated its value in fostering a working social environment in which new skills and relationships are developed, whilst improving the health, wellbeing and employment prospects of its participants.”
The Award came with a prize of £500, to further the aims of the project and was presented at a ceremony at the Barbican centre. There were speeches from Sheriff Nigel Pullman JP and Billy Dove MBE JP, Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s charity City Bridge Trust. The awards were presented by Sue Ireland, Director of Open Spaces at the City of London Corporation, and we were able to meet the entrants and winners from the other projects.
The Award acknowledged all the hard work that everyone involved in the project has put in and was an honour for Peter Bedford HA to receive.