STORY: Green Community Hubs – Elaine
Retired office worker, Elaine, spends time most days tending Eden Gardens – a thriving Green Community Hub at Westview Community Association in Fleetwood – and is a key member of the site’s Wednesday Gardening Group.
The space has benefitted from much-needed regeneration during the last year thanks to Elaine and a team of other volunteers, and it’s now used by community members of all ages for a whole variety of activities.
A keen gardener, Elaine is no stranger to rolling her sleeves up and getting stuck in with whatever needs doing, whatever time of year. Hailed by others as ‘amazing’ and ‘a godsend’, and recognised for taking on leadership responsibilities, she is extremely modest about her contribution. However, without the Elaine’s of this world, doing that solid, regular work, spaces like this simply wouldn’t thrive.
Elsewhere, she does litter picks, and it was another volunteer there who introduced her to this site.
Speaking of her involvement, Elaine said:
“I have a few hours to spare and someone I joined on a litter pick asked if I wanted to come and have a look at Eden Gardens. I thought alright then, I’ll give that a little go, and that was it – we were here, and it’s just progressed from that.
“I saw it and thought it needs bringing back to what it used to be, because there are some beautiful plants in here and they were a bit lost in the overgrowth. It’s like a conveyor belt of jobs, but I keep nipping in and pecking away at it.
“I’m proud of helping get it to this stage, at this point. It’s never going to be perfect because it’s ever-growing, but if it’s usable it’s going to be good for the community centre. Ultimately, that’s really what it’s all about. If somebody’s using the space that you’ve opened up, that’s enough.
“There are people that come from care homes too. One care worker brings a couple of people who have Alzheimer’s and she said they really open-up when they come here. She says in the home there’s a lot going on and they go into themselves a bit, but here she gets more conversation out of them.
“Hopefully more groups will come and use it. We’re just waiting for a pagoda and cob oven to be built, and a sail installed, screening it off that so that more people can come, and they’re either out of the rain or out of the sun.”
Despite being a seasoned gardener, Elaine has added to her knowledge on the site:
“You’re always learning in gardening. I mean some trees you’ll know, others you don’t know. You’ll say to the others ‘is this what I think it is, and can we dig it up and transplant it somewhere else?’. You’re learning all the time.
It’s just nice when you’re all working together, then you’ll stop and have a drink of water or something, a few minutes chat. I mean it might turn into 20 minutes, but then it’s ‘right, come on, we’d better finish this’.
I love it when maybe there’s only me and, say, one other person here and they’ll be at one end, I’m at the other end and we’re working quietly for a couple of hours, just plodding away.
I enjoy coming here. I’d miss it if it wasn’t here.