Belmont students and bankers join forces to create school kitchen gardens

The Chiswick House Kitchen Garden Association* has completed a successful project to create mini-Kitchen Gardens within school grounds. With funding from HSBC, and with HSBC bankers supplying the manpower, the Kitchen Garden group created gardens in nine schools around London, which previously lacked growing space.

The bankers built a series of gardens, including an ambitious area of raised beds, along with a small orchard in the nursery playground for Wellington Primary in Hounslow; a pond and raised bed area for Lark Hall in Stockwell, and a series of raised bed gardens for other schools, mostly in West London. Twyford Abbey School even won a ‘Best in Borough’ award from Ealing council. The Kitchen Garden project also supplied fruit trees to the schools, creating mini-orchards within the school grounds.

Graham Booth, Community Support Officer and Climate Champion, HSBC: ‘I can honestly say that this was possibly the best community project I have ever been involved in. Not only was it good fun, but it was great to step back at the end of the day and see what we had achieved.’

Karen Liebreich, project co-ordinator for the Kitchen Garden group, said, ‘It was great to use the funding from HSBC and the very willing labour from their staff to create these gardens. The schools were extremely thrilled to get the gift of such a great resource for the kids. And it was lovely to see the bankers working so hard!’

*Note: The Chiswick House Kitchen Garden Association used to run the walled gardens at Chiswick House, before handing over management last year to the Chiswick House and Gardens Trust, along with 3 years of funding from the Local Food Fund.

June 2, 2011